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Guardian/Juggernaut Vigilance/Vengeance Guide (3.0+) by Vesev and AndrewPast


veSev

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Great guide! I've definitely been having difficulty getting Accuracy on gear, haha. Looking forward to the PVP update.

The PVP section is going to need some work. I originally thought that Vigilance wouldn't be too much different than pre-3.0, but I am tweaking how I play daily. The biggest adjustment is learning when to prioritize AOE over single target. For the biggest numbers, AOE will be better. However, Vigilance has higher single target damage than before too, so that might be what's need more to help the team.

 

Another point of adjustment is that masterstrike hits noticeably harder with sunder and melee debuffs on target. This plus other changes messes with priorities on most of our abilities to be situational. Such as trying not to kill a target with overhead slash to save the debuff or briefly switching targets to use plasma brand on a target in a group to spread dots.

 

There's more, but those are the biggest fundamental changes to the spec. I'll play more and update the guide later.

Edited by Andrew_Past
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I disagree quite a bit with the utility section. Depending on the fight, the extra duration on Saber Reflect, the cleanse for Enraged Defense, and the lowered cooldown on Enraged Defense can all have value, while the sunder effect on Smash/Slam and the speed boost on Chilling Scream are of negligible use on a lot of fights. I could maybe even see the lowered cooldown and improved DR for Intercede for some very specific fights (example, would be great for Cartel Warlords to help out whoever gets stunned at the end).

 

Not that the preferred utility loadout you suggest is necessarily wrong, but to suggest that as the default standard and not even mention how useful lowered cooldown on ED or extra duration on Reflect are?

 

EDIT: Also you guys seem confused on how the new ED cleanse works.

 

"However, the current design of this ability and the fact that cleanses no longer work in PVP make this a circumstantial PVE utility as I said above. "

 

Stuns/CC count as cleansable effects now, so its extremely useful in PVP as it acts like a second stunbreaker. It's actually better that way for PVP anyways, as not cleansing dots means you will still get all your ticks of ED, AND you get to break the stun.

Edited by wadecounty
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I disagree quite a bit with the utility section. Depending on the fight, the extra duration on Saber Reflect, the cleanse for Enraged Defense, and the lowered cooldown on Enraged Defense can all have value, while the sunder effect on Smash/Slam and the speed boost on Chilling Scream are of negligible use on a lot of fights.

 

Not that the preferred utility loadout you suggest is necessarily wrong, but to suggest that as the default standard and not even mention how useful lowered cooldown on ED or extra duration on Reflect are?

 

Reflect is very selectively useful in PVE, keyword, very selectively.

 

Enraged Defense as a ability is very meh as a DPS, it's great in some of the Ops that is AOE heavy but honestly, the choices we made in writing/consulting for the guide reached the conclusion that a reduced CD on Focused Defense is quite meh, especially since you can't use it preemptively, unlike ANY other defensive cooldown.

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I disagree quite a bit with the utility section. Depending on the fight, the extra duration on Saber Reflect, the cleanse for Enraged Defense, and the lowered cooldown on Enraged Defense can all have value, while the sunder effect on Smash/Slam and the speed boost on Chilling Scream are of negligible use on a lot of fights.

 

Not that the preferred utility loadout you suggest is necessarily wrong, but to suggest that as the default standard and not even mention how useful lowered cooldown on ED or extra duration on Reflect are?

 

EDIT: Also you guys seem confused on how the new ED cleanse works.

 

"However, the current design of this ability and the fact that cleanses no longer work in PVP make this a circumstantial PVE utility as I said above. "

 

Stuns/CC count as cleansable effects now, so its extremely useful in PVP as it acts like a second stunbreaker. It's actually better that way for PVP anyways, as not cleansing dots means you will still get all your ticks of ED, AND you get to break the stun.

Is it a purge... or a cleanse? No one has managed to take the time and tell me >.>

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Is it a purge... or a cleanse? No one has managed to take the time and tell me >.>

 

Well I'd think you guys would have tested these things yourself. It is a cleanse, as the ability states. It will not remove player dots, it WILL remove player stuns, I have not tested it on NPC dots yet.

 

Reflect is very selectively useful in PVE, keyword, very selectively.

 

Enraged Defense as a ability is very meh as a DPS, it's great in some of the Ops that is AOE heavy but honestly, the choices we made in writing/consulting for the guide reached the conclusion that a reduced CD on Focused Defense is quite meh, especially since you can't use it preemptively, unlike ANY other defensive cooldown.

 

As for this, I don't think those utilities are any more selectively useful as a DPS in an ops setting than sunder on Slam or speed on Chilling Scream are. Which is why I don't understand why 2 are emphasized so far above the other 2. I think instead, you should clarify the pros and cons to each ability and suggest the person select on a fight by fight basis.

 

Example, there are fights where the raid as a whole will take tons of ticking AOE damage (in story mode ToS I can already confirm this on the 3rd boss), using ED on cooldown there saves your healers a ton of trouble, and having ED available 30 seconds faster means you can get 2-3 additional uses out of it in an encounter. Conversely, I can't see the speed on Chilling Scream or the sunder on Slam having any real use on that fight. MAYBE you could argue for the sunder on Slam for the adds, but they aren't really grouped up well enough to hit multiple with 1 slam in most cases.

Edited by wadecounty
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Well I'd think you guys would have tested these things yourself. It is a cleanse, as the ability states. It will not remove player dots, it WILL remove player stuns, I have not tested it on NPC dots yet.

 

 

 

As for this, I don't think those utilities are any more selectively useful as a DPS in an ops setting than sunder on Slam or speed on Chilling Scream are. Which is why I don't understand why 2 are emphasized so far above the other 2. I think instead, you should clarify the pros and cons to each ability and suggest the person select on a fight by fight basis.

 

Example, there are fights where the raid as a whole will take tons of ticking AOE damage (in story mode ToS I can already confirm this on the 3rd boss), using ED on cooldown there saves your healers a ton of trouble, and having ED available 30 seconds faster means you can get 2-3 additional uses out of it in an encounter. Conversely, I can't see the speed on Chilling Scream or the sunder on Slam having any real use on that fight. MAYBE you could argue for the sunder on Slam for the adds, but they aren't really grouped up well enough to hit multiple with 1 slam in most cases.

 

I definitely agree with you on choices regarding utilities and presenting "options"

 

I would say that Guardianship is a must group utility, similar to your reason on reduced Focused Defense CD. In the second boss of TOS, multiple times already, Guardianship has made the difference between a living person and a dead person, because when you only have 1 health, that absorb bubble could make the half GCD difference for the healer's cast to get off just in time. Purifying Sweep is more debatable. I would take it for any fight where target switching is a common occurrence, as any fight where having the ability to create an armor debuff practically ANYWHERE in your rotation is a gigantic awesome bonus. That being said, for a single target sustained DPS slugout, the talent could be put elsewhere.

 

Similarly, I disagree that movement talents are mandatory, they should be selectively used. Freezing Force giving a speed boost SOUNDS cool, but you may go out of your way to apply it, plus it only covers the 5 meter radius around you, it's really only useful for people standing literally on top of you.

 

I've probably gotten the most mileage out of:

 

Battlefield Command, Defiance, and the Cyclone Slash talent (forget name)

 

Purifying Sweep and Guardianship

 

And lower FD CD and speedboost on enure.

Edited by GrandLordMenace
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I'm a little miffed at the Opener, why delay the Reseted Ravage till after Force Scream and VT? Shouldnt it be

 

ST > FC > [Relic/Adrenal] > Impale > Ravage > Shatter > Ravage > Force Scream > VT ?

 

Would that yield more DPS or am I just being stupid and Force Scream actually does respectable damage now?

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I'm a little miffed at the Opener, why delay the Reseted Ravage till after Force Scream and VT? Shouldnt it be

 

ST > FC > [Relic/Adrenal] > Impale > Ravage > Shatter > Ravage > Force Scream > VT ?

 

Would that yield more DPS or am I just being stupid and Force Scream actually does respectable damage now?

 

Force scream doesn't have a cooldown reset, so if you delay it you'll have less damage at the end of the fight. But since Ravage does have a cooldown reset, you can delay it until 2 GCDs before using Shatter and it won't be a DPS loss.

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Force scream doesn't have a cooldown reset, so if you delay it you'll have less damage at the end of the fight. But since Ravage does have a cooldown reset, you can delay it until 2 GCDs before using Shatter and it won't be a DPS loss.

 

Ok? but the Force Scream DoT and the damage itself isnt THAT high enough to put it as priority over Ravage in the opener is it? i'm talking Opening damage, not overall for the entire fight.

 

Also, in your Sig, you Misspelled Level.

Edited by Kaos_KidSWTOR
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Ok? but the Force Scream DoT and the damage itself isnt THAT high enough to put it as priority over Ravage in the opener is it? i'm talking Opening damage, not overall for the entire fight.

 

Also, in your Sig, you Misspelled Level.

 

It's not about Force Scream vs Ravage, it's about putting everything on cooldown as fast as possible.

 

From the moment that you hit Shatter and start its 12 sec cooldown, you have a 10.5 secs (well technically 7.5s) window of time during which you can use Ravage at any point. Its cooldown is reset and it's not going anywhere - it will still be reset after using some other attacks, and you can't reset it again any sooner by putting Ravage back on cd again straight away because resetting the cd comes from Shatter. Hope that's clearer for you

 

EDIT: Give this thread a sticky too, it deserves it, great work :)

Edited by Cotlu-Hunlon
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Well I'd think you guys would have tested these things yourself. It is a cleanse, as the ability states. It will not remove player dots, it WILL remove player stuns, I have not tested it on NPC dots yet.

 

I am not debating its selective use, the lowered cooldown and cleanse of Enraged Defense, but rather we've offered a general build of utilities that offers quite a bit of group utility. The design of that utility makes it is so you asking your healers to slack. I tried it for Torque, 3rd boss in Ravagers which is probably the only place I would take it, and I was unable to use even though I was stunned 3-4 times that fight. Simply, the healers were on top of healing. I am not saying it doesn't have it uses, but rather it doesn't work as efficiently for a group as I think most would like. Personally, I'd rather have the cleanse tied to Saber Reflect. It makes more sense in my mind.

 

And in truth, I would say utilities are vastly different for everyone. I merely presented a stepping stone for those interesting in getting the most for their 7 points. This doesn't entirely take into account group comp, players skill level, etc. An example of this, why would I take our version of pred as a group utility when we have a sentinel/mara in the group. Sure, they could use their 30 stacks on the ability that converts them to Focus, crit, or alacrity, but their pred also offers a defense chance that mine does not. Have a suggested build that offers a wide array of group utilities was the point of that section. Had I gone into detail about utility swaps per boss, that section would be a HELL of a lot longer.

 

Anyways, I appreciate the feedback for sure. I will work out a better raiding section to apply what you've suggested.

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I'm a little miffed at the Opener, why delay the Reseted Ravage till after Force Scream and VT? Shouldnt it be

 

ST > FC > [Relic/Adrenal] > Impale > Ravage > Shatter > Ravage > Force Scream > VT ?

 

Would that yield more DPS or am I just being stupid and Force Scream actually does respectable damage now?

 

Kind of two parts to this. First half, I believe others have mentioned following your post. Second part is Ravage is now less of the Pie Chart. Pre 3.0, Ravage was roughly 30-33% of our total damage in any given parse. Now, it is roughly 21-24%. Delaying Ravage for an auto crit Force Scream, which does more outright damage than the 1st and 2nd Ravage hits and possibly 3rd unless it crits, is a DPS gained and keeps the rotation flowing compared to using Ravage directly off CD.

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Anyways, I appreciate the feedback for sure. I will work out a better raiding section to apply what you've suggested.

 

Trust me its not really criticism just different perspectives, very appreciative you guys went out of your way to do this. I just think the approach you guys took with the section on the rotation (not listing every move so people will think on their feet) would also apply well to the utilities.

 

And yeah, the ED thing can be considered being a crutch for your healers, but I don't look at it that way, my perspective is every possible thing I can do to make progress, I'll do it. Otherwise you could call everything that you do above and beyond your specific role a crutch.

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