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Respec advice from Defense to DPS


Kinrain

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Hi guys, I hit 50 a few days ago after levelling exclusively as Defense (and I loved it even if it was slower). But now our guild is getting ready for HMs and Ops and frankly we just have too many tanks.

 

As the Guild Leader and because I seem to be pretty wealthy compared to my friends (and can afford to buy/make the gear I need) I agreed to switch to a DPS spec.

 

I've built up some pretty good gear, i'm a Cybertech so mods, armouring etc are all purple Deft or Potent 22A's and purple Might 22a's and i'm doing dailies so I have the hilt and am working on the rest. I'm not focussing on any one stat like Surge or Crit so its pretty balanced and i'm nearly ready to respec.

 

Now the question is as what? I like to PVP but obviously need to be viable for HMs. Which is best for me, Focus or Vigilance or maybe a Hybrid.

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I only specced Vigilance yesterday for the first time ever so my verdict is a little premature. But after extensive play I have enough to form an opinion.

 

 

Vigilance DPS

 

Pros

 

-Simple rotation (Sundering Strike, Blade Storm, Overhead Slash, Plasma Brand, occasionally Masterstrike/Dispatch as a filler/finisher). It's almost like Ret-Paladins in WotLK. Just hit whatever comes off cooldown, make sure to use your Blade Storms with the +60% Crit proc.

 

-No Focus issues: While many of the attacks are very costly, once you get going your Focus rarely drops low as long as you remember to use Sunder Strike every 4.5 seconds.

 

-Probably slightly higher DPS than Focus on single-target whack-a-mole encounters. Obviously I don't have numbers to back this up but my guesstimate says that Vigilance performs better than Focus on encounters that don't allow regular use of Force Leap.

 

Cons

 

-Really boring: This is my personal opinion obviously, but the Vigilance rotation and play-style strike me as really boring and one-dimensional. All you do is leap to a target and cycle through your 1,2,3,4 rotation until it drops dead. Certain talents are nice (Unremitting) but not game-changers.

 

-Decent AoE, but not as awesome as Focus: Force Sweep can still hit pretty hard in Vigilance spec and is free as well. But obviously it doesn't have anywhere near the BAM it does in the Focus tree. When it comes to killing adds like in Karagga's fight. nothing beats a well timed Sweep Bomb.

 

 

Focus DPS

 

Pros

 

-Good damage, when the encounter allows regular use of Force Leap. Without it you can find it hard and costly to maintain "Felling Blow" procs for all your Force Sweeps.

 

-Performs well in Flashpoints because weak mobs die so quickly.

 

-One of the best AoEs in game. Important for some encounters....not so good in others.

 

 

Cons

 

-Focus management requires more attention

 

-Requires frequent use of both Zealous Leap and Force Leap to maintain "Felling Blow" procs and high Focus.

 

-Requires encounter-knowledge in order to maximize damage since Sweep Bombs require a little setup.

 

-Over-reliance on Force Sweep, a laggy and notoriously unreliable ability. More than any other ability in game, Force Sweep is prone to being "interrupted" by knockbacks, triggering the GCD without triggering the ability and various other kinds of annoyances.

 

-Excellent in PvP.

 

 

I think that sums it up pretty nicely.

 

If you're just getting started and prefer to keep it simple, go Vigilance. You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly and will output solid DPS.

Edited by Dee-Jay
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Thanks Dee-Jay

 

I'm leaning more towards Focus at the moment. When you look at the cons you identified the most offputting is the boredom rating of Vig over Focus. I'm good at managing resources and planning ahead so the cons of Focus don't worry me as much as playing a spec i'm just not going to have fun with.

 

The only thing i'm a bit concerned about is being hamstrung by not being able to Focusbomb if the group is using CC. Anyone have any input on this, raiding focus spec guardian's views would be very welcome.

 

The spec i'm planning is this:

 

Focus Build

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You have too many tanks? Never seen that before.

 

To answer your question, you probably want to spec Vigilance. Focus is more of a bursty pvp type deal, and while you get big crits with sweep, you can't outperform Vigilance on an actual boss or something that takes more than 5 seconds to kill. If you want to continue being relevant in PvP, I would just dump all your points into every Vigilance spec except the force sweep one on the bottom, put those into improved sundering strike in defense. That way you maintain the utility of shorter awe cds/guardian leap giving you -20% damage taken ect.

 

As for actually playing Vigilance, stat priority, as in which stat gives the most damage per point, should be something like this: Accuracy until 100% > Strength > Power > Crit > Surge > Accuracy OVER 100%

 

Keep your accuracy as close to 100% as possible, anything over should be considered a bonus.

 

Vigilance doesn't have an actual rotation due to our Focus resource, but we use a priority list which will be something like this:

 

Master Strike > Dispatch w/ crit buff from OS/PB > Overhead Slash > Plasma Brand > Blade Storm w/ crit buff from OS/PB

 

Remember that your OS and PB will occasionally refresh the CD on master strike, and you should *ALWAYS* use it unless you know you'll be interrupted or have to move. MS should be on CD at all times, it is by FAR our most damaging move. Weave Sundering Strikes in to keep your focus up, if its down, pop Combat Focus rather than using a regular old strike.

 

Thats all I can think of at the moment.

Edited by Mystry
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I understand that Vigilance is better for sustained dps on bosses so probably the logical choice for PVE HMs and OPs. Add to this the opportunity to do a bit of off tanking and it seems like the only choice. But it just looks boring. Also I do like to PVP and Master Strike is just too situational for me.

 

I do clip Master Strike to get the first and second (and third if they're dumb) hits but very few players in the 50 bracket fail to get out of the way and using a stun just to get off a MS seems like a bad idea.

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I understand that Vigilance is better for sustained dps on bosses so probably the logical choice for PVE HMs and OPs. Add to this the opportunity to do a bit of off tanking and it seems like the only choice. But it just looks boring. Also I do like to PVP and Master Strike is just too situational for me.

 

I do clip Master Strike to get the first and second (and third if they're dumb) hits but very few players in the 50 bracket fail to get out of the way and using a stun just to get off a MS seems like a bad idea.

Actually, Focus is better for most boss fights because most of them involve running around a little bit. Either you get knocked back a lot (Annihilator, Gharj, Bonethrasher), either you have to move a lot (Soa, Fabricator, Karagga), either AoE is actually useful (Gharj, Jarg and Sorno, Foreman Crusher, Karagga). This means that you would almost ALWAYS have the perfect opportunity to Force Leap back into the fight to set up your rotation.

 

This pretty much means that Focus comes out slightly on top, especially when dealing with adds or a lot of movement (exploding mouse droids, mind traps, puppies, etc).

 

Vigilance is really not much far behind, though, so whichever you pick, you will still be doing great.

 

However, if you want to offtank, then yeah, Vigilance is where you'll want to be. It has some core tanking talents, so you can just pop Soresu whenever and be a decent tank if you have the gear.

 

TL;DR: Both are great, but I find Focus situationally better in most operation encounters, and also a LOT more fun in PvP. Focus' real strength has nothing to do with its skills or abilities though. Focus' real strength is the ability to make you not care about losing a game in PvP-- because you'll still be demolishing whoever you aim at and enjoying yourself wildly.

Edited by Celeitia
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I am in the same situation as you. We have 3 tanks for 1-2 spots, and the other two tanks only seem to want to tank, so I have been working on a Vigilance off-spec and gearing up. Here is the guide I wrote on my guild's forums (mostly for my own reference and to think through these issues):

 

Build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#500cMZIGMR0udduRZh.1

 

You have a 9 second rotation. Your three big-hitting abilities, Plasma Brand, Overhead Slash, and Blade Storm all have 9 second cooldowns when talented. Blade Storm gets a big crit boost after using Plasma Brand or Overhead Slash, so it should always follow one of these abilities.

 

Open with Saber Throw>Force Leap

Rotation is Sundering Strike>Overhead Slash>Blade Storm>Sundering Strike>Plasma Brand>Strike*

 

The rotation is net -2 focus every 9 seconds. Use Combat Focus when necessary. Also, I am not sure about the value of Master Strike, but with the focus-negative aspect of this rotation and the short cooldowns of the big abilities, I don't see it fitting in very well. If, however, you are at more than 7 focus when Strike comes up, you should sub in Force Sweep (free) or a partial Master Strike (also free, but cut it off when Sundering Strike comes off CD), otherwise you will be over-capped on focus. If you are at 0 or 1 focus after Overhead Slash, and Combat Focus is on CD, you should throw in an extra Strike to build sufficient focus for your next rotation.

 

Note that you can also generate focus in Shien form by taking damage and that your first Blade Storm will be free due to Momentum. If the rotation gets screwed up, use Master Strike or Force Stasis to give things a few seconds to return to normal.

 

I don't know if that is 100% correct or optimal, but it seemed to work pretty good in the FP I ran the other night.

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I respecced yesterday to Focus, equipped my gear and tried it out.

 

I started testing it out on Belsavis dailies so my learning curve wouldn't affect anyone else, quite agood chioice as I died a couple of times while I got used to the changes. Next I tried some group stuff (Correlia Heroics) with 2 guild members it performed really well. I did need to watch my positioning to avoid breaking CC with my Sweeps but it wasn't as hard as I had anticipated. My sweeps were hitting around 4k.

 

I was really interested in how it would perform in PVE so queued up later in the evening and got into Voidstar. It felt like it was working pretty well but considering I had no Expertise I wasn't expecting to make much of an impact.

 

Imagine my surprise when I saw I was on the top of the list for damage! I got pretty much the same number of medals as usual (later I worked in Guard and used my taunts more often). My biggest hit was about 3.8k.

 

I've got some more work to do on my gear, (definately need some more Expertise) but the change so far has been a good one.

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Glad to hear focus is working well for you. I went Vigilance/Shien because I'm new to MMO's and as someone else already said the rotation is simpler with Vigilance than it is with Focus and it's not so dependent on the Force Sweep Bomb and just deals a consistent amount of damage throughout. Focus is great for PvP and honestly if you can get a Vigilance Guardian teamed up with a Focus guardian it's an amazing combo. The Focus guardian can do a huge burst to a lot of targets in AoE and the Vigilance Guardian can finish them off with automatic critical hits on Dispatch. Both specs are great. It really just comes down to your personal play style.

 

Also, it seems like you may still be running your Focus Guardian in Soresu form. Are you doing a full Focus build or is this a Focus/Defense Hybrid? Are you doing the Focus build in full Soresu form? Just wondering if you could post a spec for us. I'm just curious.

Edited by Marqhill
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Also, it seems like you may still be running your Focus Guardian in Soresu form. Are you doing a full Focus build or is this a Focus/Defense Hybrid? Are you doing the Focus build in full Soresu form? Just wondering if you could post a spec for us. I'm just curious.

 

Thanks Marqhill.

 

Here's my build. Happy to answer any questions.

Focus Build

 

I did PVP last night in Soresu as I was concerned i'd be really squishy. However I seemed to die less than when I PVP'd in Defense. Maybe I just killed people before they could grind me down or (more likely) the playstyle of Focus is better for me personally. Using Guardian Leap definately adds to your survivability.

 

I'll be trying tonight in Shii-Cho form and will update with my experiences.

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I too am right on the cusp of making the jump from Defense to a DPS specced build. I leveled Defense and have been grinding through the PvP ranks with it but always intended to go DPS as soon as I had the gear for it. Got my Champion's lightsaber last night and after today's dailies will have enough to get another piece of gear putting my total expertise at 380-400ish.

 

I like how powerful Defense is for soloing (you never die) but my gear is getting good enough to make dailies pretty mindless and I spend 90% of my time in PvP. I was getting very sick of hitting people like a limp noodle so I'm swapping.

 

I'm just at the crossroads of Vigi or Focus? I reall y like the additional defensive talents in the Vigi tree but want to make sure I start actually dropping people I target so I'll have to give both a whirl.

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Not that you need any Justification for choosing Focus, but since you PvP, I think you made the right choice because a PvP focus build is pretty much identical to a PvE focus build.

 

Whereas with Vigilance builds, two of the best PvP talents in the tree are quite worthless in PvE while you're filling a DPS role, and some great PvE talents carry little value in PvP.

 

Pure DPS Vig build might out-dps your focus build in PvE, but is nowhere near as flexible or survivable in PvP. And if you were to drop some of the pure-dps talents to bolster your PvP, then it's doubtful that you'd still be able to out-dps the Focus build.

 

So if you're going to do both, I think Focus is definitely the way to go.

Edited by PhoR
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I have a Guardian Focus in Champion gear, all my points in Focus 32 and 9 in Vig, i never had to respec, love it, and not only in pvp but all flashpoints, HM in which i´ve been grouped with guildmates and friends.

 

It´s definitively a great tree and i knew it since the very beggining, we were very few in dec, jan but look now...it is for something:)

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Thanks for the comments guys.

 

Second day experience update incoming as promised:

 

Doing Dailies as Defense with Doc out my health rarely dropped below maximum so it seemed to be fairly quick as there was no downtime. However, my Wet Noodle attacks were prolonging the fights and as Focus they're considerable shorter. I think doing dailies as focus is much faster and a lot more fun. The childish appeal of killing 4 or 5 mobs at once may wear off but it hasn't yet.

 

In PVP I switched to Shii-Cho form but didn't really notice any improvement in damage (i'm sure it was there) but I did feel a bit squishier. I think i'll stick with Soresu for now at least until my gear gets a bit better (I only have around 90 Expertise). I was fairly consistantly at the top of the medals and at least in the top three for damage.

 

I'll post a screenshot of my stats later as i'd like a bit of feedback on what I should be prioritising. Apologies in advance for the Trooper look but its the only unmodded Orange gear I had free to turn into dps gear :D

Edited by Kinrain
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Well i'd been Focus spec for about a week until last night the guild needed a tank for the False Emporer. So I switched to a Def/Vig hybrid build.

 

I was quite capable as a tank and I would say my damage was probably over time comparable to the Focus build.

 

But boy was it ever boring in comparison.

 

Spec'd back into Focus at the end of the night.

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Switching to a tank build is not necessary to tank in heroic flashpoint. I usually tank in focus or vigilance.

 

Imo speccing focus without taking momentum is a mistake. This talent gives you a free bladestorm after zealous leap and force leap.

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Switching to a tank build is not necessary to tank in heroic flashpoint. I usually tank in focus or vigilance.

 

Imo speccing focus without taking momentum is a mistake. This talent gives you a free bladestorm after zealous leap and force leap.

 

I concur,

 

Momentum is a huge boost to Focus DPS because the spec already is Focus starved and you get a lot of benefit from your Leaps.

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Yeah I do get that, the free bladestorm would be usefull but for 3 TPs is quite expensive and you have to prioritise between that and Defiance or Victory Rush.

 

I suspect you are right, i'll respec and try it out.

Well if you're using bladestorm on cooldown and a zealous or force leap before it every time then it's the equivalent of gaining 1 Focus every 3 seconds, but works even if your focus bar is capped out so the mechanic is actually BETTER than gaining 4 focus.

 

Victory rush is 1 Focus per 4.5 seconds assuming you can actually use sundering on cooldown.

 

With Defiance, you'd have to be getting stunned once every 12 seconds to keep up with the focus gen from Momentum. That can certainly happen in PvP, but in PvE it's not likely.

 

To me, Momentum looks like the strongest of the three, even though it costs one extra talent point.

Edited by PhoR
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Why is everyone saying Vig/Def is boring in pvp... you guys are guarding your team right or are you just soloing people...

 

You can only sweep bomb every minute right?

 

I'd imagine waitting a minute to do your one trick would be more boring than being constantly engaged in combat.

 

Vig/Def in Pvp gives you "enough" dps and "enough" survivability to keep your teammates alive via guarding, taunting and being a credible threat.

 

With a guild healer you pretty much become unkillable and the focus of the entire imperial angst machine while you kill them one at a time and never die... it's freaking amazing... even when your PUG'ing Vig/Def lets you solo a healer and at least that's somewhat helpfull to your team...

 

lol

 

I'd rather be killing imps in a big imp gang-b than waitting for my 1 minute timer to pop.

 

/shrug... just curious.

Edited by VoidJustice
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Why is everyone saying Vig/Def is boring in pvp... you guys are guarding your team right or are you just soloing people...

 

You can only sweep bomb every minute right?

 

I'd imagine waitting a minute to do your one trick would be more boring than being constantly engaged in combat.

 

Vig/Def in Pvp gives you "enough" dps and "enough" survivability to keep your teammates alive via guarding, taunting and being a credible threat.

 

With a guild healer you pretty much become unkillable and the focus of the entire imperial angst machine while you kill them one at a time and never die... it's freaking amazing... even when your PUG'ing Vig/Def lets you solo a healer and at least that's somewhat helpfull to your team...

 

lol

 

I'd rather be killing imps in a big imp gang-b than waitting for my 1 minute timer to pop.

 

/shrug... just curious.

 

Uhh no, Sweep Bombs are doable 3-4 times a minute with Force Exhaustion.

 

I don't know why people say Vigilance is boring, the rotation is longer than Force Sweep and you're not tied to using Stasis or Exhaustion to set up your combo. It's a freer playstyle, especially in the, ahem, guardian role.

 

Tried all the specs at 50 and found Vigilance to be the most fulfilling.

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Vigilance spec is a face-roller spec key bind the following skills to these button:

 

Sundering Strike- 2

 

Blade Storm- 1

 

Force Sweep- 3

 

Plasma Brand= 4

 

Overhead Slash - 5

 

Spec into Momentum and Victory Rush you get something like:

 

Saber Throw-> Force Leap -> 2-> 4 -> 1 -> 3 -> 2 -> 5 -> (Stasis/Master Strike) -> Zzzzz...

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Pros

 

 

 

-Really boring: This is my personal opinion obviously, but the Vigilance rotation and play-style strike me as really boring and one-dimensional. All you do is leap to a target and cycle through your 1,2,3,4 rotation until it drops dead. Certain talents are nice (Unremitting) but not game-changers.

 

If this is all you're doing as Vig then you're simply bad at the game. And believe me when I say, 95% of the Guardians on my server are outright terrible. So your post doesn't surprise me in the least.

Edited by TheLakers
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I'm leveling as vigilance, level 41. I've been vigilance since the beginning (other than the points in the Defense tree that give you free bladestorms and increase Sundering Strike's focus generation).

 

I found the rotation pretty fulfilling. It's not pure whack-a-mole. Seems like some people don't actually know how to develop their own rotation, and since it wasn't handed to them, they don't really understand it.

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If this is all you're doing as Vig then you're simply bad at the game. And believe me when I say, 95% of the Guardians on my server are outright terrible. So your post doesn't surprise me in the least.

 

Yep...because there's so much more to the spec.

 

Oh wait...

 

Here's my L2P right back at you: "If you're playing Vigilance in PvP you're holding your team back and thus are bad."

 

There, a blanket, unfounded statement with little merit or value.

 

See what I did there?

Edited by Dee-Jay
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