NayaruLovegood Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 (edited) Defense Guardian Build with DPS Leanings: https://ibb.co/gjckx43 (Disclaimer: The image above doesn't show stats for 100% optimised mods/enhancements/amplifiers but it is close) This build assumes you've been playing Guardian and know how it works but want to add some spice to the usual builds AKA this is not a guide for how to play defense guardian. This loses the addition of tank set bonuses and tank augmentations in favour of greater DPS which I find works very well for group and solo play. Set bonus: Descent of the Fearless raises DPS by roughly 10% + force clarity bonuses. Augmentations: Full set of "Critical Augment 73" Ear/implant/relics: All are absorption. Enhancements: All are shield rating. I try to keep an even balance of shield/absorb on guardian but you may find a better setup works for you. I did try having alacrity enhancements upto the 1213 threshold but it was too much of a defense/shield loss for my liking. Utility options: Are pretty self-explanatory but I will explain some of the less used one: Gather strength: I usually ignore this but for DPS purposes as a tank you're going to get hit by every movement impairing skill under the sun. I don't bother to watch this buff stacking it just shows a good return in my outgoing damage, especially on big mob pulls. Focused Freedom: As a tank I very rarely need this for focus generation so the extra movement speed and movement-impairment cleanse can be helpful. Persistent Chill - Normally I ignore this utility but for this build there are 3 good points: 1) The DoT helps proc the force clarity recharge from the set bonus - especially when there are multiple targets. 2) The movement speed reduction is helpful when your AoE's don't catch/aggro all the mobs and your mass taunt is on cool. It may not take aggro but it ill stop things running away so easily before you can AoE again. 3) The 30% movement speed bonus is hardly noticed out of combat but in combat it is really noticable when you need to run around aggroing multiple targets while your force leap and blade blitz are on cooldown - This speed buff has no cooldown. Tactical: I stick to Leviathan's Hide Tactical in both single target and multiple target encounters because in relation to Hord's Makashi's Strike it's better for several reasons. 1) With's Hord's the overall damage reduction when compared to Leviathan's strike is actually -0.5% unless you rotate your skills in such away that Warding Strike / Aegis Assault's damage reduction can be placed soon after Riposte replaces it with +5% damage reduction. Doing this will result in a total of 8% damage reduction - but to do this is a damage loss. (Thanks to AdjeYo for the extra clarification on this) 2) The only slight downside to sticking with leviathan's strike on single target encounters is that there is a 2 second downtime from when Leviathan's 2.5% damage reduction ends and Warding Strike + Guardian Slash can be used again. However this is mitigated if there is any alacrity at play at all. I hope someone likes the build! Happy to hear feedback, constructive criticism, variations, etc! <3 Original Post kept here for now so I can look at later incase there's something I missed from the above: Thought I'd share my experimental guardian defense/tank build, it's been working very well in both group content and solo play. I still have my lord of pain w/ shield augments but until I need it for harder content this has been very good for MM FP's and solo content. While the extra damage reduction and mass taunt cd on LoP is nice it wasn't feeling as good as this DPS increase has been. Plus the shield augments were great but I constantly felt like I was hitting like a wet noodle, this isn't miles better but it is noticably better. All the enhancements are "Superior Immunity Enhancement 80". Ear piece, implants and relics are absorption with no "on hit" or "on use" effects because I'm lazy. There may be better options but also I prefer a flat set of defenses rather than larger boosts that are temporary. Belt is amplified champions, I'll switch this with helm at some point if/when I need to The picture shows how the stats look without buffs. I Originally had 3 alacrity enhancements for 1213 alacrity but in practice it was a bit too much of a defense/shield/absorb loss for my liking. The Set is a very good DPS set and all the augments are "Critical Augment 73" which is a decent boost to power and crit (28% unbuffed crit chance is nice) and as a measure of DPS increase I'm seeing 3-5k(ish) more damage coming off my guardian slash than before. I haven't finished the mods yet but I'll probably go for which ever mods are 313 endurance, lowest defense rating and highest mastery rating to see if I can push my crit chance up to 33% because I like the idea of critting a 3rd of the time (in theory). But if this means dipping below 30% defense chance then I'll probably go for a more balanced approach of 30%-ish defense/crit share. The persistent chill utility is usually very weak but in this situation it helps proc the set bonus which recharges force clarity (especially when there's multiple targets). The 30% speed boost is not worth mentioning out of combat but in combat you really notice it as defense guardian can be quite slow to run around aggroing things . Of course it helps with slowing down multiple enemies which may have been missed by your other aoe's when mass taunt is on cooldown. The speed buff can be refreshed as much as possible as long as you have focus to cast freezing force. I'm not 100% sure about the utility "unremitting" which prevents being knocked back after using force leap. But going by previous encounters I can't count the amount of times I leap into action and get booted away very quickly so I'm sure it's been more helpful than I realise. lol Extra note on Leviathan vs Hord's tactical theory: Guides found around the internet say to use leviathan for multiple targets and hord's makashi strike on single target boss fights but when I make the following observation no one has been able to counter the reasoning, if you know better then please let me know: With Leviathan's hide I get +2.5% damage reduction for 10 seconds when on a single target which refreshes everytime I use guardian slash which is ideally every 12 seconds if there's 0 alacrity at play (and less if there is some alacrity at play). Hords makashi strike takes away the 3% damage reduction from warding strike and replaces it with a 5% damage reduction for 20 seconds which when comparing to leviathan's stike is 0.5% less damage reduction but the benefit here is that it has no downtime compared to leviathans 1-2 second downtime. given that a lot of boss encounters have adds at some point there seems to be only some encounters where hord's tactical is better and then only because it doesn't have a 1-2 second downtime of -0.5% damage reduction by comparison. I basically just keep leviathans on all the time. (also with hords if you are using riposte whenever it is activated it will remove the ability for guardian slash to AoE, which isn't important in single target encounters anyway but I thought it was worth mentioning) I hope someone likes the build! Happy to hear feedback, constructive criticism, variations, etc! <3 Edited June 5, 2020 by NayaruLovegood Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdjeYo Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 So on Leviathan vs Hord's, here's something to take into account. While it is true that Hord's will consume the 3% damage reduction from Aegis Assault, the two buffs can exist together. Essentially you hold of on using Retaliation until you can use Aegis Assault directly after it. This means delaying Retaliation a lot (also you will lose the blade barricade buff for 2 seconds, though you could also use retaliation a little earlier to keep up blade barricade). So basically you can get the full 5% damage reduction bonus from Hord's with 100% uptime, but you will lose out on a few seconds of blade barricade and you lose some DPS. The DPS loss, plus the fact that delaying Retaliation all the time is just very annoying leads me to not use it all, but it does grant more benefits on purely single target fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NayaruLovegood Posted June 5, 2020 Author Share Posted June 5, 2020 That's really good information, thank you for that! I definitely feel the same. That extra damage reduction is not worth the DPS loss, especially in this build's situation lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farstrider Posted June 12, 2020 Share Posted June 12, 2020 What mods are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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