So, I'm level 38 and on Hoth - first time in a long time I've been this high a level in SWTOR. Thing is... I seem to be getting my tail kicked across the planet pretty severely whenever an Elite shows up. Prior to Hoth, I was killing elites without much thought, just having Kira start the fight then taunting them away from her (if my DPS didn't pull them to me anyway) about halfway through her lifebar and that'd be that....

On Hoth, to kill an elite it seems like I have to blow Call on The Force and Focused Defense at a minimum to stay alive. Heck, normal mobs in sufficient quantity are getting me down to 1/3 pretty routinely.... not something I like. Worse, after my first encounter with this situation I respecced for a little added defense*

My armor is all level 37 blue, with 37 blue enhancements and mods; so I don't feel like I'm undergeared or anything. What's really strange is that Kira seems *tougher* than I am, despite me only giving her Green armoring, and her Adaptive armor counting as Light rather than Heavy like mine... I don't get it.

It just seems like things are hitting far, far harder on any previous planet, despite my handling Quesh and Balmorra quite easily with level 30 gear even when I was approaching 38... now that I have upgraded gear things are that much tougher. I'm seriously considering going full Defense at this point.

About the only things I can figure at this point are that Hoth is a lot harder than any previous planet, by an order of magnitude just about... and also Unremitting might be more significant than I realized, which would really stink since I hate the glow.

Is that my problem, unremitting? Or is this normal? Is there something I'm just blatantly missing that's making regular fights much much harder than they were on Quesh?

Sorry if this is rambly, it's late and I'm frustrated.

*I was full Vigilance, now I'm Vigilance/Defense (21/8) - I'll be throwing everything else into Vigilance of course, but I wanted to grab Guard Stance, Dust Storm and Victory Rush... and I nabbed Master Focus too because it was there.

Hoth is a 38-42 planet, right? So you're right near the bottom of the recommended level, which means things are going to be more difficult. What level are the enemies you're fighting?

Further, by switching to some tanking skills, you've reduced your damage output for comparatively little gain (an extra 15% armor when you're not in Soresu form is not doing you a ton of good, and a 5% reduction in accuracy when you don't have a shield generator or high defense is also not helping much), which means it takes you longer to kill them, and gives them more time to kill you. If you're not bringing a healing companion with you, of course you'll take more damage over the fights.

In other words: if you went with a 4/25 build instead of an 8/21 build, you'd get an extra four points for DoT boosts from Force Rush and Burning Purpose, or if you're interested in damage reduction, you could take the 2 points in Commanding Awe in place of one of the other two.

And I know you hate the glow from Unremitting, but it's honestly the best way to spend the points and makes you a much more effective DPS, since everything you're fighting tries a knockback in the first few seconds. You could put them in Gather Strength (2 force when movement's impaired) or Stagger (1s longer stun on force leap), but neither provide the pure utility at the beginning of a fight so that you're in position to apply all your DoTs and burn your target down.

tl;dr: You appear to have reduced your damage output and not significantly improved your incoming damage reduction, and you're likely fighting enemies higher-level than yourself without a healer. Those things don't combine very well.

Just a slightly amusing update here:

I respecced twice - once to full Focus (effective but kinda boring imo); and now I'm full Defense.

Strange thing I've noticed since going full defense: Despite using a Shield generator and losing one of my more powerful attacks? I don't seem to have lost much DPS in practice, but I have gained a LOT of defense - I nearly took 2 Elites at once. Granted I blew all my cooldowns during that fight, but still, considering where I was before that's a pretty enormous performance leap.

Is it just me? Does Defense just suit me that much better or is it (at least for leveling) that much stronger? <o.@>

Its just you and your current stats more than likely...Vigilance is the best Guardian tree for leveling with Defense being our second best.

Both do very well but Vigilance does have a much sharper learning curve so it really would not hurt for you to just finish your leveling through the defense tree.

Honestly, for leveling, Focus is probably the best - you usually fight lots of packs of trash mobs, and that will whizz through them. Played correctly, focus will only be a bit behind vigilance even in boss fights.

That said, Vigi is still definitely my preferred non-tank tree. Go with what you like!

If you get the Fied Respec perk, you can swap to suit the circumstances. As already stated, Focus is indeed "da bomb" (pun intended) against packs of normal/weak mobs with the occasional strong (when paired with Kira), whereas against single Elites or Champions, Doc will keep you up as you whittle it down.

Having said that, I found Hoth somewhat annoying -- on my Sentinel I got there at 35, I think, and most mobs were 3 levels higher -- doable, but somewhat rough -- until I got to the end of a 3-stage bonus and discovered that the final Champion boss was level 42. I literally could not hit him with anything, until I levelled to 38 and went back.

My Guardian just levelled through the Storyline during the double XP weekend, so didn't need to do any of those side quests -- strangely liberating and frustrating at the same time, to not even do the World Story line to help the Republic... I will probably end up going back to redo all the World stuff, and pick up the Datacrons, now that I've hit 55, just to address that annoyance.

Sadly I've swapped servers several times, so legacy-wise I'm only at level 4, can't get field respec except via cartel coins. Good grief I'd love to be able to do that though.

Focus was indeed very effective, it just... bored me senseless was all. It lacked the cool animations of Vigilance and the ability to just stand there and take it when needed like Defense. Personal preference and all that.

Now you have mentioned armor, but what about your weapon? In this game upgrading weapon is much more important than your armor compared to other games you may had played.

Also check your earpiece and impants, which are no less important than your other pieces of your gear. A lot of people neglect upgrading this and wonder why they are getting crushed when they are fighting level 40+ mobs in level 13 earpiece..

Weapon and off-hands are always upgraded to the same level as armor, I'm very meticulous about that hehe... However you bring up a good point with implants and earpieces... those I haven't been nearly as careful to upgrade, maybe that's my problem.

Also, I was doing really well as defense, had a long run with that spec and did well... but I was getting bored since it was also kind of slow; so I switched back to Vigilance... On the one hand, Vigilance hits like a freight train now that I have the rest of my tricks from that tree, so that's good... the downside is, I'm about as tough as wet tissue paper.

I've been doing alright in spite of that by sending Kira in first - she is strangely tougher than I am despite wearing the same level and grade of armor (albeit her's is willpower rather than strength based), and her adaptive armor being Light rather than Heavy... but I think what helps her survive longer than me is her defense chance.. She has a 10% chance to defend attacks... I only have 5%. May not sound like much but I suspect the ability to just outright block one in ten attacks works out a lot better than one in twenty, despite my higher mitigation values.

Oh well, it doesn't matter, I'm doing well enough now and as soon as I finish Voss I'll be upgrading my implants and earpiece to match the rest of my gear, so maybe that will solve my problem.

Weapon and off-hands are always upgraded to the same level as armor, I'm very meticulous about that hehe... However you bring up a good point with implants and earpieces... those I haven't been nearly as careful to upgrade, maybe that's my problem.

 

Also, I was doing really well as defense, had a long run with that spec and did well... but I was getting bored since it was also kind of slow; so I switched back to Vigilance... On the one hand, Vigilance hits like a freight train now that I have the rest of my tricks from that tree, so that's good... the downside is, I'm about as tough as wet tissue paper.

 

I've been doing alright in spite of that by sending Kira in first - she is strangely tougher than I am despite wearing the same level and grade of armor (albeit her's is willpower rather than strength based), and her adaptive armor being Light rather than Heavy... but I think what helps her survive longer than me is her defense chance.. She has a 10% chance to defend attacks... I only have 5%. May not sound like much but I suspect the ability to just outright block one in ten attacks works out a lot better than one in twenty, despite my higher mitigation values.

 

Oh well, it doesn't matter, I'm doing well enough now and as soon as I finish Voss I'll be upgrading my implants and earpiece to match the rest of my gear, so maybe that will solve my problem.

Having levelled as a Vigilance Guardian, I can honestly say that I never really felt "tissue paper", so to speak. Make sure you're utilizing your defensive cooldowns. You can open at least 50% of your fights with Focused Defense running. For groups of trash and with Force sweep costing nothing (in fact, GRANTING you 1 focus), I would generally leap into the center-most mob and open with Force Sweep to stun all the standard/weak enemies. Then systematically kill each one. Ensure your rotation goes something like this; upon Force Sweeping...Plasma Brand > Overhead Strike (you can do these in either order tbh) > Blade Storm, any weak/standard mob should be dead after this rotation (probably dead after Plasma Brand + Overhead Strike). For the tougher enemy, try this rotation ensuring that you also cast Dispatch anytime it procs. Use Force Push > Leap > Master Strike > Force Stasis > then standard Vigi rotation on stronger enemies. Don't forget to use Awe, it's on an especially short CD if you've specced Commanding Awe. Use Combat Focus liberally. Pre-casting FD, and using Force Leap > Sundering Strike > Overhead Strike > Plasma Brand > Force Push > Force Leap > Master Strike > Force Stasis, should leave almost any Elite at 50% or below. This playstyle allowed me to level 100% Vigilance with very few issues along the way.

TL;DR You have alot of tools available to you in order to control the fight. Ensure that you're using all of them.

Hrm... I'm operating *very* similarly to how you suggest crewthiefthor - I think the one thing I don't do (that I will be trying going forward), is using Focused Defense at the start of the fight. I usually use it as an "oh crap" button, which only works some of the time. Using it to start the fight I could see working pretty well.

One thing that's been helping me a lot of late is using Kira to hit the strongest mob in a given pack, then jumping in and rapid-fire killing all the weak/normals before taking out the strong(s) or elite. Kira is way more resilient than you'd expect from someone in Light Armor, so she's usually completely fine until I get around to hitting the tough mob; at which point it quickly turns to fight me (and I'm near full health so that doesn't matter much).

I've been doing a lot better since hitting ~47 or so though; most of my fights I'm above half health when I'm done; rather than down to 25% or so - and now that I'm 51 I've had little difficulty in most circumstances; I even took down a pair of elites recently (albeit that was a tough fight where I had to blow all my cooldowns). Still, things have improved a lot lately.

Now I'm off to Makeb!

Hrm... I'm operating *very* similarly to how you suggest crewthiefthor - I think the one thing I don't do (that I will be trying going forward), is using Focused Defense at the start of the fight. I usually use it as an "oh crap" button, which only works some of the time. Using it to start the fight I could see working pretty well.

 

One thing that's been helping me a lot of late is using Kira to hit the strongest mob in a given pack, then jumping in and rapid-fire killing all the weak/normals before taking out the strong(s) or elite. Kira is way more resilient than you'd expect from someone in Light Armor, so she's usually completely fine until I get around to hitting the tough mob; at which point it quickly turns to fight me (and I'm near full health so that doesn't matter much).

 

I've been doing a lot better since hitting ~47 or so though; most of my fights I'm above half health when I'm done; rather than down to 25% or so - and now that I'm 51 I've had little difficulty in most circumstances; I even took down a pair of elites recently (albeit that was a tough fight where I had to blow all my cooldowns). Still, things have improved a lot lately.

 

Now I'm off to Makeb!

Yeah, i've found running Focused Defense at the start really helps soften the blow on that alpha strike (both with the extra mitigation and HoT). Give it a go and see what you think, just be mindful of the Focus drain. I will agree that once I got Dispatch it was game over...that really changed the game for my Vigi Guardian. Anyway, have fun!