Fairly good guide. Except for this section. Force fade is an amazing talent- most classes have some kind of dot and AoEs are extremely common, it can also be used to walk through Huttball obstacles undamaged. Once you get used to this talent, you really, really notice when it's gone. Accuracy (Steadfast) is not important to Watchman spec, as very little of the main damage source is from your offhand, DW mastery is taken mostly because it's unavoidable on the Path to Defensive Roll. 30% reduced AoE damage is incredible when you consider just how many AoEs there are. Not taking both points in Close Quarters isn't wise (especially if you don't plan on retraiting for every instance of PvE), because at only 12 seconds, Force Leap isn't a cooldown that needs to be excessively guarded. Focused leap and Jedi Crusader are both redundant for a watchman sentinel because you'll be overflowing with focus without either.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#501bIbRrRMfGzZhMM.1

 

This is a much better PvP (and PvE) build for watchman. The one extra point is inconsequential, it can go anywhere, though I typically have it in Insight for the extra 2% crit on dots. Stagger for an extra half second is also worthwhile. The wild card spot for this is Focused Pursuit. It seems very situational, but when you're using Valorous call to get your team a speed boost at the start*, 65% run speed for 10 seconds is not trivial. With it, only way you can't interrupt the capture of Alderaan's far side (East for Republic, west for Imp) is if you're stunned/slowed prior to getting into leap range. None of these 3 traits are all that impressive with only one point, so just use it as your "flavor" of the build.

 

*Use Valorous call with 59 seconds left to round start, or the second paragraph of the Alderaan Narrrator's intro and pop Trancendence at either 1s remaining on Huttball/Voidstar or after 3 steps on Alderaan. It's a medium cooldown but not a core skill, so use it as such. Also try to communicate using this to your Consulars/Inquisitors, so they don't override it with Force Speed, as if they wait for your sprint to drop, they'll be significantly ahead of the enemy team in starting position.

Lol I used almost the same build but with focused leap over defensive roll.

Standard pve rotation starting: Leap (4) + overload (1) + zealous (7) + cauterize (5) + merciles (0) and build back from there or use MS + Stasis until leap, overload and sealous are back up.

Pvp is a bit more tricksy, because you will prolly use leap + overload + leg slash and then you are focus starved, plus you need to toss pacification and kicks all the time.

Also about focus...I would roll guardian to run on the focus tree rather than a sent...

Force Fade is pretty useless except for one specific action: running over a fire trap (when you don't have the ball) when the enemy expects you to stop.

When I originally PvP'd on my Watchman spec, I had 2 specific instances where I wanted to have 100% damage reduction on it after about 60 warzones. Totally not worth the 2 points.

So I've done some thinking and I retract my previous statement about guardian being the better focus spec.

1) Guardians sweep will only hit 22% harder. They are in soresu. We are in shi cho. Even though we are in shi-cho I believe us to be the more survivable spec. I need to get off work and test transcendence. But if you can reasonably keep that or rebuke up at all times you are hard man to kill.

2) As an ancillary point to the above we hit harder on literally every other move than a focus guardian does. All of them. Particularly since we have +20 armor mitigation passively. Takes them twenty seconds to get that much armor pen. We also are not dependant on getting hit for focus generation. Our sweep is one focus, our focus generator is six focus all at once, there's is two focus every 4 seconds. Same effect, different delivery.

3) While they will do more aoe damage the ole sweep + storm combo should come out relatively in our favor and we delivered it much cheaper.

4) They have a free aoe snare. It's just emphatically better in everyway. No debate there.

5) Here goes the deal a valor initiated, inspiration, leap, exhaust, cauterize, sweep, then storm combo should really lay down the law. You can fit another sweep in at the end as well. That should be a guaranteed kill on nearly anyone. Yes it's on a five min cd, and it's not operative lethality, but it's still strong particularly early in the match where caps and nodes matter. If you can not only get your party to mid sooner but also murder the initial rush you've done a lot more than just put your name on the top of the scoreboard.

I'm at work and on an iPhone so I'll add more later but if you look at it objectively we are at least equals to focus guardian.

One more thing let's drop the anecdotes. I somehow doubt any of you have gotten a 6k sweep. It's hard for a focus guardian to hit that hard. No need to exaggerate. Let's try and deal in as many facts as possible.

So I've done some thinking and I retract my previous statement about guardian being the better focus spec.

 

1) Guardians sweep will only hit 22% harder. They are in soresu. We are in shi cho. Even though we are in shi-cho I believe us to be the more survivable spec. I need to get off work and test transcendence. But if you can reasonably keep that or rebuke up at all times you are hard man to kill.

Guardians will be in ShiiCho. Guardians will hit 30/200 = 15% harder with Force Sweep.

Guardians also spend 3 (IIRC) Focus on their Force Sweep. Sentinels spend 1.

2) As an ancillary point to the above we hit harder on literally every other move than a focus guardian does. All of them.

Incorrect: a Guardian will hit equally hard with Blade Storm and with Exhaust. They will also have an armor debuff focus builder.

Guardians also have an ability to grant them 6 Focus off the GCD, so they don't have to spend a GCD on Zealous Strike.

I'm at work and on an iPhone so I'll add more later but if you look at it objectively we are at least equals to focus guardian.

Yes, Focus Guardians are roughly equivalent, although the taunt + AOE taunt + AOE snare + 5% miss debuff + swap to Soresu and guard are somewhat better for teamplay.

Focus Sentinels have better survivability than Focus Guardians due to Rebuke, Force Camo.

Guardians also spend 3 (IIRC) Focus on their Force Sweep. Sentinels spend 1.

Unless the guardian is specced for vigilance, then their force sweep is free.

Unless the guardian is specced for vigilance, then their force sweep is free.

Last I checked, the context of this discussion was about Focus-spec'd Knights.

Force Fade is pretty useless except for one specific action: running over a fire trap (when you don't have the ball) when the enemy expects you to stop.

 

When I originally PvP'd on my Watchman spec, I had 2 specific instances where I wanted to have 100% damage reduction on it after about 60 warzones. Totally not worth the 2 points.

does it prevent dots/burns/aoe, and late damage from breaking you out of stealth instantly?

I find that to be a problem with force camo as a focus. I hit it, take 3 steps and then die to damage that was "mid flight", aoe, or was knocked out of stealth.

Guardians will be in ShiiCho. Guardians will hit 30/200 = 15% harder with Force Sweep.

 

Guardians also spend 3 (IIRC) Focus on their Force Sweep. Sentinels spend 1.

 

Yes, Focus Guardians are roughly equivalent, although the taunt + AOE taunt + AOE snare + 5% miss debuff + swap to Soresu and guard are somewhat better for teamplay.

 

Focus Sentinels have better survivability than Focus Guardians due to Rebuke, Force Camo.

harder. Guards also get that +6% damage talent we don't.

Ah yeah, although the tooltip says "melee attacks", so I would guess that it may not apply to force attacks; only Zealous Leap / Strike for a Focus spec.

Can anyone confirm/deny? Should be easy to check ability tooltips in-game.

People, read the talents: http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_knight/guardian/

Focus spec guardians get the same CD on sweep, but get 30% more damage directly to sweep, and unless they spec for free Freezing Force, an additional 6% to everything, making Shii-Cho do 11% more damage to everything.

Sentinels get a cheaper cost on Sweep (while also having better focus generation), the centering buffs, 2% reduced damage and reduced incoming AoE damage.

Guardians get the better deal on Focus.

Note:

IMHO

If you are reading this with PvP in mind and you don't currently use the mouse to move and turn, or you do not know how to strafe, circle strafe, and keep forward facing on an opponent using mouse movement, then don't worry about ANYTHING posted in the OP and practice your movement skills first.

You could have 1 hotkey assigned to strike and do better knowing how to move than you will having 30 keybinds and the perfect attack prioritization if you don't know how to move and keep your target in the hit box.

This is KEY to being competative in PvP. Over ANY build decisions, ANY attack sequences, ANY specs, ANY gear.

You must know how to move. Practice Practice Practice.

Then worry about all the rest.

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If you're reading for PvE tips....ok, enjoy! I think there's some real gems in here.

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My suggestion to the OP. Blade Rush in the combat tree deserves more credit than you're giving it IMHO. I subscribe to the 'build focus - dump all your focus until your foe lies dead at your feet' school of thought for the Combat tree, and when doing so Blade Rush is a key component to that burst damage.

My suggestion to the OP. Blade Rush in the combat tree deserves more credit than you're giving it IMHO. I subscribe to the 'build focus - dump all your focus until your foe lies dead at your feet' school of thought for the Combat tree, and when doing so Blade Rush is a key component to that burst damage.

Not sure what you mean by no credit. Obviously you get it as combat since its the final skill. Do you mean in the dealing damage section or something?

Guardians will be in ShiiCho. Guardians will hit 30/200 = 15% harder with Force Sweep.

 

Guardians also spend 3 (IIRC) Focus on their Force Sweep. Sentinels spend 1.

 

Incorrect: a Guardian will hit equally hard with Blade Storm and with Exhaust. They will also have an armor debuff focus builder.

 

Guardians also have an ability to grant them 6 Focus off the GCD, so they don't have to spend a GCD on Zealous Strike.

 

Yes, Focus Guardians are roughly equivalent, although the taunt + AOE taunt + AOE snare + 5% miss debuff + swap to Soresu and guard are somewhat better for teamplay.

 

Focus Sentinels have better survivability than Focus Guardians due to Rebuke, Force Camo.

Incorrect. Almost all of it. Look at the "guardian hits for 6k aoe with one ability" thread. A focus spec guardian in shi cho is doing it wrong, pve'ing or already max valor. You have to be and stay in soresu for all your guards/taunts to work. So they skip all the shi-cho talents. All of them. We will hit harder on every ability except sweep. They will probably double our medals but there's nothing we can do about that.

You could be a shi-cho guardian but why? 12 medals easily vs 8 at max. Big numbers are sweet but I'd rather have my max valor sooner. No one stance dances, it isn't worth your time. You choose your spec and then sit in the stance it's built around.

We will do more damage vs a single target they have greater aoe. That's pretty much what it boils down to. Also enrage(forgot what it's called for guardian) is a minute cd and they spec for 8 focus instead of 6. That's sweet but z strike gives me 40 focus a minute. The gcd is not a big deal. We aren't gcd locked unless you want to hit strike on your free gcds.

I already covered the armor debuff. Takes twenty seconds to build it to twenty percent. The fight will be decided by then.

ill tell you what.

I am getting sick and tired of casting stasis on a target. Standing there for 2 seconds, watching the animation. watching them choke mid air in blue.

only to suddenly get hit for 3k by my "stunned" target. who blinks out of it. My stasis cd suddenly reverting to not ever having been casted. As MY CLIENT thinks I cast stasis, but the server, and their client thinks I was standing there like a moron for 2s while they beat the hell out of me.

I die to that at least 2 times a day.

Incorrect. Almost all of it. Look at the "guardian hits for 6k aoe with one ability" thread. A focus spec guardian in shi cho is doing it wrong, pve'ing or already max valor. You have to be and stay in soresu for all your guards/taunts to work. So they skip all the shi-cho talents. All of them. We will hit harder on every ability except sweep. They will probably double our medals but there's nothing we can do about that.

 

You could be a shi-cho guardian but why? 12 medals easily vs 8 at max. Big numbers are sweet but I'd rather have my max valor sooner. No one stance dances, it isn't worth your time. You choose your spec and then sit in the stance it's built around.

 

We will do more damage vs a single target they have greater aoe. That's pretty much what it boils down to. Also enrage(forgot what it's called for guardian) is a minute cd and they spec for 8 focus instead of 6. That's sweet but z strike gives me 40 focus a minute. The gcd is not a big deal. We aren't gcd locked unless you want to hit strike on your free gcds.

 

I already covered the armor debuff. Takes twenty seconds to build it to twenty percent. The fight will be decided by then.

Let's start from the top:

1. A focus guardian uses Shi Cho for 80%+ of their playtime. Taunts and AOE taunts are not restricted to stance. Whoring medals from Guard takes all of 2 minutes out of a 10+ minute Warzone. Try again.

2. Good players switch stances as it is relevant. If you want to know how a Guardian farms 12 medals and 280k damage, they typically start in Soresu with guard whoring on an acid pit, then swap to Shii Cho / Shien for the rest of the match. They cycle taunts and AOE taunts on cooldown in both stances.

3. You can't farm hardcore medals when you're not winning.

4. Pretty sure it's impossible for Guardians to have "greater AOE" when Sentinels have a 1 Rage cost Cyclone spammable, and Rebuke does multitarget damage. Buy a clue?

5. Sentinels have a chance to do more damage with Zealous Leap (and Strike, and Slash). Guardians get 6% more damage on those abilities. Generally speaking, neither has a significant single target DPS advantage.

6. The OGCD focus pump lets them unload 100% at the start. This is not hugely relevant from the discussion, since Zealous Strike is only 1 GCD away. Not sure why you brought this up in response to my post.

7. Guardian's range attack applies 2 stacks of sunder in a Focus spec. Also, their Sundering Strike will build 2 stacks. So by "20 seconds" you really mean 4.5-6.0 seconds if they put their mind to it.

ill tell you what.

 

I am getting sick and tired of casting stasis on a target. Standing there for 2 seconds, watching the animation. watching them choke mid air in blue.

only to suddenly get hit for 3k by my "stunned" target. who blinks out of it. My stasis cd suddenly reverting to not ever having been casted. As MY CLIENT thinks I cast stasis, but the server, and their client thinks I was standing there like a moron for 2s while they beat the hell out of me.

I die to that at least 2 times a day.

Same often happens as Combat spec if you specced into the talent that makes Master Strike 'immobilize' targets.

Very annoying.

Do pacify and pommel strike work in pvp?

Pacify works, pommel strike is a PvE only ability (as well as opportunity strike).

Aside from a typo or two I thought it was a great read. Gives the new PVP'er a great starting point.

Thanks for the post.

I'm not sure why, and maybe i'm wrong, but it seems like when talking about combat that Blade Rush was not discussed all that much. I started off with combat and changed to watchman at 40. I recently went back to combat now that I'm 50 and have a bit of gear and I'm really liking it.

Basically I found that Blade Rush replaced slash. I had them both on my bar and saw that they did the same amount of damage base, but Blade Rush gives you the extra Ataru strike for a bit more damage. Maybe I'm wrong and open to criticism, but generlly I'll leap in, zealous strike, blade storm and then mainly use Blade Rush until Storm is off CD. I find this works pretty well and I do good damage with this. Just curious why I didn't see more about Blade Rush when talking about combat.

Let's start from the top:

 

1. A focus guardian uses Shi Cho for 80%+ of their playtime. Taunts and AOE taunts are not restricted to stance. Whoring medals from Guard takes all of 2 minutes out of a 10+ minute Warzone. Try again.

 

2. Good players switch stances as it is relevant. If you want to know how a Guardian farms 12 medals and 280k damage, they typically start in Soresu with guard whoring on an acid pit, then swap to Shii Cho / Shien for the rest of the match. They cycle taunts and AOE taunts on cooldown in both stances.

 

3. You can't farm hardcore medals when you're not winning.

 

4. Pretty sure it's impossible for Guardians to have "greater AOE" when Sentinels have a 1 Rage cost Cyclone spammable, and Rebuke does multitarget damage. Buy a clue?

 

5. Sentinels have a chance to do more damage with Zealous Leap (and Strike, and Slash). Guardians get 6% more damage on those abilities. Generally speaking, neither has a significant single target DPS advantage.

 

6. The OGCD focus pump lets them unload 100% at the start. This is not hugely relevant from the discussion, since Zealous Strike is only 1 GCD away. Not sure why you brought this up in response to my post.

 

7. Guardian's range attack applies 2 stacks of sunder in a Focus spec. Also, their Sundering Strike will build 2 stacks. So by "20 seconds" you really mean 4.5-6.0 seconds if they put their mind to it.

I was tempted to not even dignify your original ad hominem filled ignorant rage post with a response. Now that it's been cleaned up I'll be terse and just say you are talking about a completely different build than the one I referenced. A shi cho build is fine, you are more prone to getting squished. But if you have a healer or something keeping you alive then go hog wild. The build I refrenced is a hard hitting tank. That's the difference. It is more self sufficient. You don't need a healer you can go find one, but anyone will do. You have the power to protect them and dispatch your foes. You are also harder to kill since you stay in soresu.

Cyclone slash in pvp? Amusing. The goal of the build is to get everyone panicking and then dispatch someone. Not sweep and then turn your next ten gcds into cyclone spam. Get real.

I mentioned enrage because you said it was six focus I corrected you and said in a focus build it would be eight. Far enough about saber throw though. I neglected that.

Try to contain the rage though. It doesn't help your side of the conversation. It just makes you look foolish when all the facts hit the table.

I was tempted to not even dignify your original ad hominem filled ignorant rage post with a response. Now that it's been cleaned up I'll be terse and just say you are talking about a completely different build than the one I referenced. [...]

 

Cyclone slash in pvp? Amusing. The goal of the build is to get everyone panicking and then dispatch someone. Not sweep and then turn your next ten gcds into cyclone spam. Get real.

Let's try this again, although I suppose it would be more efficient to go back and start with the original comments.

General context:

You said: So I've done some thinking and I retract my previous statement about guardian being the better focus spec.

Discussion: This means the context is a Focus spec. If you meant hybrid spec, you should have specified a hybrid spec. Because 99% of Focus spec players are going to have 31+ points into the Focus tree, because it's the Focus spec.

Note: I'm not sure how you're going to compare a "Guardian hybrid spec" with a "Sentinel hybrid spec", since Sentinels do not have a tank tree. Thus, the only remaining option is that when you referenced a "FOCUS SPEC COMPARISON", you actually meant a comparison between "FOCUS SPECS".

Topic 1:

You said: 1) Guardians sweep will only hit 22% harder. They are in soresu. We are in shi cho.

I said: Guardians will be in ShiiCho. Guardians will hit 30/200 = 15% harder with Force Sweep.

You said: Incorrect. Almost all of it. Look at the "guardian hits for 6k aoe with one ability" thread.

Discussion: It is not incorrect. Guardians will be packing ShiiCho to do damage in a Focus spec. If you want to talk about a hybrid defense spec where there's a reasonable point to running Soresu for more than a tactical option, then you should have said so. Furthermore, using Soresu some of the time is irrelevant to the mathematical fact that 30/200 = 15% harder, not 22% harder or 30% harder. If you want to factor ShiiCho specific damage bonuses, then it's 30/203 = 14.8% harder.

Note: Even in a hybrid spec, the above would still be true.

Topic 2:

You said: 2) As an ancillary point to the above we hit harder on literally every other move than a focus guardian does. All of them. Particularly since we have +20 armor mitigation passively. Takes them twenty seconds to get that much armor pen.

I said: Incorrect: a Guardian will hit equally hard with Blade Storm and with Exhaust. They will also have an armor debuff focus builder.

Discussion: A Guardian in a Focus spec (a spec with 31+ Focus, where you spec for Focus stuff, e.g. not a hybrid spec, since we were discussing Guard Focus versus Sent Focus) will have the same 20% armor penetration in ShiiCho, and will hit equally as hard on every other significant ability except for: Smash (discussed under #1 above), and ZL, where the Sent has a chance at an offhand proc. Sent will also have proc chances on Strike, ZS, Slash, et al. Conversely, the Guardian will have a minimum 2 stacks of sunder, unless they don't like building Focus.

Note that the armor debuff is a bit of a variable, since it is also possible, under organized conditions, for the Sent to use a Guardian's armor debuff.

Considering that the three main damage moves (Smash, Exhaust, Blade Storm) do not have a chance of offhand attacks, and that the Guardian gains the advantage of a reliable additional 8-12% armor debuff on all attacks most of the time (and up to 20% in many cases), the damage levels are about equivalent.

Now in the next overall response you went on some tangents. I'm not sure how medal whoring and such really applies to Focus spec damage numbers, et al, but it seems to be important to you. Later in this thread:

Topic 3:

You said: You have to be and stay in soresu for all your guards/taunts to work. So they skip all the shi-cho talents. All of them.

I said: 1. A focus guardian uses Shi Cho for 80%+ of their playtime. Taunts and AOE taunts are not restricted to stance.

Discussion: Re-iteration: TAUNTS DO NOT REQUIRE SORESU. More to your implicit argument: we're talking about a Focus build because you were originally talking about a Focus build. Don't care about tangents where you hybrid spec Focus-Defense because you want to spend half the WZ in Soresu.

Topic 4:

You said: You could be a shi-cho guardian but why? 12 medals easily vs 8 at max. Big numbers are sweet but I'd rather have my max valor sooner. No one stance dances, it isn't worth your time. You choose your spec and then sit in the stance it's built around.

I said: Good players switch stances as it is relevant. If you want to know how a Guardian farms 12 medals and 280k damage, they typically start in Soresu with guard whoring on an acid pit, then swap to Shii Cho / Shien for the rest of the match. They cycle taunts and AOE taunts on cooldown in both stances.

Discussion: Apparently we were on a "let's farm medals" tangent. I have some experience with medal farming, and the approaches behind it. As I stated, and will re-iterate: it does not take much effort for a tank to farm protection medals. In terms of actual valuable gameplay, a tank DOES swap to Soresu if they are a team player and really feel like a Guard will help. I know the tanks in my guild that do it. I know that some of the better PvPers on my server will switch to their tank stance, even if they are not spec'd for it, because they want to do something specific.

They do not "stance dance" like you could in WoW, where you hopped into a different stance for 6s or less (older versions) then swapped back. However, when you are ******** on the enemy team, and then they try to **** on your healer, it's a pretty good tactical options to swap stances for Guard. So, stance swapping does happen. However, it is not "stance dancing" because you are not swapping for 1 instant ability then hopping back, like you would in vanilla WoW to toss in an Overpower while DPSing primarily in Berserker stance.

Topic 5:

You said: We will do more damage vs a single target they have greater aoe. That's pretty much what it boils down to.

I said: 4. Pretty sure it's impossible for Guardians to have "greater AOE" when Sentinels have a 1 Rage cost Cyclone spammable, and Rebuke does multitarget damage.

Discussion: Aside from the single target piece, already discussed above, the "greater AOE" is clearly false. Even though you later focus on the Cyclone part (e.g., there's no way a Sentinel can fail to do as much AOE damage as a Guardian), you neglect the Rebuke aspect which is quite significant. You may or may not realize it, but Rebuke actually does a pretty good amount of total damage. Naturally, that damage is spread out, but it is an AOE effect. Thus, it's pretty damn hard for a Guardian to end up with more AOE damage than a Sentinel, as long as the Sentinel is at the keyboard pressing buttons.

Perhaps that clears up some of the misunderstanding.