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Topic: [Srs Bsns] Class Understanding/Countering

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[Srs Bsns] Class Understanding/Countering

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I was thinking the other day that while in game, I seem to hear a lot of questions and misinformation swirling around about classes, abilities, and so on. I thought it would be a good idea for us to consolidate things about our own classes into one thread so that people would have a better idea of things to look for and how to counter them. I feel like this will help us a lot, particularly when rateds come out (whenever that is) to help us dominate even harder.

 

I'll start with my class - feel free to post about your own or add on things that you've experimented with against others. I'm going to post based on the republic version of abilities, since I'm most familiar with them.

 

This is going to be long, and there won't be a tl;dr version. Skip reading it/laugh at me for being a tryhard if you want, but I think a collective thinktank like this will really help us improve as a guild.

 

Guardians in general:

 

As you all well know, we are absolute monsters in melee, and are unrivaled by any but Sentinels in this department. Avoid being engaged any longer than you have to in melee with a Guardian - you WILL lose a straight-up melee fight. Beyond melee range we have taunts (30m), saber throw (30m, long cd), force leap (30m, long cd), blade storm (10m), zealous leap (focus only, 10m), force exhaustion (focus only, 10m), force stasis (10m, long cd), force push (10m, long cd), and dispatch (10m).

 

The absolute biggest trick to neutralizing Guardians is to exploit the minimum range on Force Leap. Abuse the living crap out of it. The range is 15m - 30m. You want to be in the 5m-14m sweetspot - there are abilities that can hit you there, sure, but you won't have the melee facerapetrain unleashed on you if you can stay in this zone.

The biggest mistake I see people making is to root/stun a Guardian and then immediately zoom out as far away as possible to put space between them. DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU ARE A GUNSLINGER/SCOUNDREL AND ARE GOING INTO COVER. You'll immediately get leapt on, snared, and pounded into dust. The 4 piece Guardian PvP set bonus adds 10% damage for 5 seconds after a force leap - you're playing directly into their hands by letting them use it multiple times per fight. After stunning/rooting, snare the guardian, get out to 10-15m, and stay there by kiting them around and staying in this range if at all possible.

I almost never have this done to me, but I've definitely done it to other Guardians/Sentinels as my Vanguard/Gunslinger, and it is extremely effective. You can almost hear them vainly pounding their force leap button in total rage-mode.

 

Tank Guardians:

 

Glass has more experience here than I do, but I've played them a bit and can offer a bit of advice. These guys fall into one of two groups: full Defense Guardians, and Vigiliance/Defense hybrids. Both have their merits and recognizing which you're up against is pretty important. Both will be running in Soresu form, so keep an eye out for them doing a flipping leap at you or using Hilt Strike to stun you to differentiate between the two.

 

Full Defense:

 

The spec is almost entirely about control, with pretty high survivability. They have Hilt Strike, unchanneled Force Stasis, Blade Barrier, and Guardian Slash to throw at you. Their Force Push is also on a shorter cooldown (45s instead of 1m). You will be sundered up in zero time flat and will basically be held in place until a teammate comes along to do you in. Their damage is generally very low (Hilt Strike, Master Strike, and Guardian Slash can still hit hard, but infrequently) to compensate. 

 

I'm of the opinion that it's best to just do what you can to ignore these guys. Don't bother attacking them back unless they're the only target left - their entire goal is to waste your time and energy, and wailing on them in vain only helps them accomplish that goal. CC them and move on to the next target. Trinket the Stasis if possible (it's usually a setup for a Stasis --> Master Strike combo, which can hurt pretty badly) and just eat the other stuns - not much you can do about them. They don't have Unremitting and are very limited beyond melee range, so feel free to snare/root/knockback immediately after they leap to you and start kiting in that 10-15m range if you're unable to CC them.

 

Vig/Defense:

 

The spec is built around using Overhead Slash and Blade Storm as a pretty decent bit of burst, combined with insane survivability. Now that they can get Stasis Mastery as well (it got moved lower in the Defense tree), they have a good amount of control as well. I honestly view this spec as one of the most dangerous Guardian ones out there because I don't see a lot of great ways to counter it. They generally wear DPS gear (or should) and are like Kinetic Shadows in that they push out solid damage (so are difficult to ignore) but have crazy survivability (so are difficult to focus down).

 

They will have Unremitting, which means that for 4 seconds after a force leap they will have 20% damage reduction and are immune to all forms of CC (including snares and roots). This talent alone makes them incredible ball carriers and an extreme annoyance if you're not prepared for it. Whenever I've run this spec I get no small amount of joy out of seeing someone blow their big CC on me while I have unremitting active, only to get a "WTF?!?" reaction as I continue to beat their face in.

 

You will be rooted for 3 of the seconds (they also talent Stagger in the vigilance tree, making the root 3 seconds instead of 2), so one option is to immediately trinket the root and start running (run through them and in the direction they just came from if possible, to make them turn around to face you). This is a pretty decent strategy, as one of the best things these guys can do after a leap is start channeling Master Strike - it's uninterruptable now, and with their CC immunity, the only way to avoid it is to get out of the range of it. If you trinket and start running immediately, you can get out of the range of the third (and most powerful) hit. Don't bother dropping a snare, they're immune to it. Just GTFO as soon as possible. Remember not to run beyond 15m, and don't waste any of your hardest hitting abilities during the 4 seconds after a leap (they have 20% damage reduction, remember).

 

Trying to kill them as a way to avoid them isn't a great idea. They get either blade barrier from Defense or Commanding Awe from Vigilance, meaning they have pretty amazing ways to mitigate damage. They also get Unremitting after every leap, and run in Soresu Form, meaning they have about 50% mitigation from armor and their Form. They have more overall survivability than a Defense Guardian, but have substantially less control.

 

If you can CC them (remember not to try during Unremitting), do it and ignore them. Their damage is pretty high (especially when you're at sub-30% health, due to near-auto-crit Dispatch), so you can't just tank the hits forever. That's about all I can say, they're a very annoying and powerful spec and very difficult to deal with.

 

DPS Guardians

 

I love playing my Guardian as DPS. If left unchecked I will absolutely devastate the entire opposing team in seconds. This definitely comes at the cost of survivability, though. They come in two varieties: Vigilance and Focus. You can recognize the difference (usually) by which form they are in: Vigilance runs in Shien Form (purple icon) while Focus runs in Shii-Cho Form (blue icon). There are weirdos like me who run either of them in Soresu form for survivability gains, but not many.

 

Vigilance:

 

Most of what I said for Vigilance/Defense hybrids applies here as well. They have Unremitting, so don't waste your CC. The big things to add here are they don't have Stasis Mastery (less control), and they will be hitting Master Strike all the goddamn time.They do more single-target DPS than Focus Guardians, and are harder to stop, but have little-to-no AoE.

 

Their Zen Strike talent gives a chance to reset the cooldown on Master Strike whenever they use Plasma Brand or Overhead Slash, and this will proc often if they're spamming these on someone. What this means to you is that you need to be constantly watching for them to start channeling Master Strike and counter appropriately. If they've just used Force Leap, you either have to eat it or trinket and run. If they haven't, you can use a knockback, stun, or other CC to break the channel. If you eat more than 1 full Master Strike, you're going to die. The full 3 second channel can go for nearly 10k if they're critting.

 

Don't panic when their DoTs are ticking on you. They do tiny damage and generally aren't worth cleansing, except maybe Plasma Brand.

 

Pretty much all of their big hitters require melee range (I think this is why they get Unremitting rather than Defense getting it), so do whatever you can to kite. They do pretty outrageous damage if left to their own devices, so they make good targets for taunts. If you're below 30%, you're probably as good as dead - their Dispatch will be almost an auto-crit and go for 4-5k - hitting a deflection cooldown (Saber Ward, Evasion, etc) in this range is ideal, since it's a 'white' attack.

 

I'm sure there's more to add here, but that's all of the big stuff.

 

Focus:

 

You've all definitely seen me play Focus before. It generates some huge numbers and can devastate a group of people in a hurry. I think it's probably the easiest Guardian spec to counter if you know what you're doing, but that's definitely a biased statement.

 

First things first: the Sweep bomb. There are a few ways this will come at you, and some are easier to stop than others. There are 3 ways to build Singularity, which is the buff that makes Force Sweep do 100% extra damage. They are Combat Focus (builds 4 singularity, gives 6 focus, 1 minute cooldown), Force Exhaustion (builds 1 singularity stack per second, costs 3 focus, 18 second cooldown), and Force Stasis (builds 1 singularity per second, builds 1 focus per second, 1 minute cooldown).

 

Combat Focus you can't do anything about - they'll use it as they're leaping at you (it's not on the gcd) and if you don't immediately knock them back, you're getting nailed for 4-6k.

 

Force Exhaustion is a snare which builds up (snares you more) over time and does pretty appreciable damage. If you're a Sage, cleanse this ASAP. This is the primary Singularity builder (it has the shortest CD by a good amount), and cleansing it will totally neuter a Focus Guardian's damage output and save you a trip to the spawn.

If you're not a Sage, try to CC the Guardian ASAP and get to 10-15m, and keep them there at least until the Exhaustion runs out. They'll have a much harder time landing the Sweep on you if you're not snared - latency wreaks havoc on that skill. In the same vein, snaring them back is a great idea for the same reason. Once they get within 10m, they'll probably Zealous Leap at you (which now roots for 1 second) to try to land the Sweep. Knock them back immediately, or try to land another CC if you have one.

 

Force Stasis is the easiest of these to counter. Just like against Defense Guardians, you want to save your trinket (CC-breaker) for this. As soon as you see it, trinket it and interrupt them however you can. The less it ticks, the less damage their Sweep will do, and they'll probably have to use another Singularity builder to try to get a bigger Sweep.

 

The biggest thing to remember is to NEVER stand still against a Focus Guardian once he has Singularity built up. Just moving around makes landing the Sweep pretty tough, especially if you're not snared. The damage is applied AFTER landing from the full jump animation, which means you can use latency to your advantage to make landing it a total bitch. It makes me have to lead you or blow more globals trying to get you to stay still, which cuts my damage pretty badly. The only way I can guarantee landing a Sweep on you is to Force Push you into a wall next to me, which gives me plenty of time to land it (you're knocked down for 2 seconds), or to Leap when I know you can't knock me back or CC me right afterwards. If you don't try to stop the Sweeps from landing, you're going to die in a big hurry.

 

Focus Guardians have Master Strike as well, and it hits every bit as hard as  a Vigilance Guardian's, just less often. Be on the lookout for it and counter it the same way.

 

Letting them use Leap frequently is probably even more devastating than it is against a Vigilance Guardian. Vigilance has Unremitting, but getting the 10% damage buff from the PvP set bonus makes those Sweeps hit super freaking hard, especially stacked with a Warzone Adrenal and a power relic. Do everything you can to stay 10-15m away, them using Zealous Leap to trigger their Sweep auto-crit is a win for you. It roots for less time than Force Leap, and doesn't give them a damage buff.

 

They're flat-out going to land a Sweep or two on you here and there, the setups are just too often and frequent for them not to. Minimize how many they DO land, and make it as difficult as possible for them to do it. They can only do it every 12 seconds at the most (cooldown on Force Sweep), and making them miss one is a HUGE loss of damage. If you're a Shadow, obviously try to catch as many Sweeps with Resilience as possible. You have no idea how frustrating it is to hit Sweep, see Resilience flip on as I'm in the air, and know that my 5k crit just turned into a 0. 

 

Both types of DPS Guardians are somewhat squishy - they don't have much for active defenses to stop incoming damage and drop quickly when focused. They have slightly higher armor mitigation (I have about 33% in a DPS stance) than other DPS, but it's not like they're a true tank - killing them early is a valid and good option. Just don't develop a tunnel mentality on them - I will really often have a couple of people start trying to kill me, and I'll just start rubber-band leaping all over the place and have them chasing me forever. Do not fall into that trap - it makes me laugh really hard doing it, and I can imagine it's really frustrating to play against. 

 

The last thing I want to touch on for all Guardian specs is Cover. Cover is the biggest pain in the ass for Guardians. Constantly hitting a CC and running to range to drop into Cover is beyond annoying. Making them run all the way to you in order to do anything wastes a ton of their time and energy. If you see them run away a bit to try to get a Leap in as an interrupt, drop into Cover to ruin their day. I'm mostly fortunate that I can't name a single good Sniper on our server, because I'm sure I would hate them beyond all reasonable measure.

 

I think that's about it, let me know thoughts and toss in your own about your own class if you'd like. I hope it's helpful (I know some of it is really basic), and I hope to get some really good info from the rest of you.

 



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Xinika the Omnispawna
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Stickied. Very informative and useful.

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Manhattan
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Awesome post!

You pretty much covered everything in it so I don't really have much to say..

I've been working on putting together a list of Juggs/Guardians that are specced into Unremitting so that we can know not to cc them when they jump on us. I'll def try to get that published soon.



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I would love to see some other classes covered in this sort of detail - I can assist in writing some stuff for KC, but that has been pretty thoroughly investigated and worked on so far. Some thoughts and such from Shin about full balance (I can speak a little to the hybrid I played) and lolinfiltration would assist a lot of guildies with one of the tougher classes to 1v1.

Hearing from the dps and healing scoundrels about their major annoyances from other classes would assist the guild in taking down those annoying operative healers and dps, imo. Probably one of the more beneficial summaries we could get, if someone feels up to writing it.

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Manhattan
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Lucyford wrote:

I would love to see some other classes covered in this sort of detail - I can assist in writing some stuff for KC, but that has been pretty thoroughly investigated and worked on so far. Some thoughts and such from Shin about full balance (I can speak a little to the hybrid I played) and lolinfiltration would assist a lot of guildies with one of the tougher classes to 1v1.

Hearing from the dps and healing scoundrels about their major annoyances from other classes would assist the guild in taking down those annoying operative healers and dps, imo. Probably one of the more beneficial summaries we could get, if someone feels up to writing it.


 Already doing it! :P



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Xinika the Omnispawna
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I'll have one up for Shadows. A video, even.

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Shinarika wrote:

I'll have one up for Shadows. A video, even.


 Updated for 1.2? 



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...what changed for Shadows in 1.2?



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Xinika the Omnispawna
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Lucyford wrote:
Shinarika wrote:

I'll have one up for Shadows. A video, even.


 Updated for 1.2? 


 Yes



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Xinika the Omnispawna
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Mace wrote:

...what changed for Shadows in 1.2?


 Nothing, but this excerpt is taken from my youtube channel for my subscribers:

 

"Hello everyone! I'm working on making an "Ultimate Tutorial" video that will be released as soon as possible. This one will strive to make common ground between entertainment qualities and learning material. I've noticed that there has been a division in what some of you want and that is understandable. I am hopeful that this new video will make amends between that line and that we can all enjoy whilst learning."



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Mace wrote:

...what changed for Shadows in 1.2?


 Gearing, mostly.



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Manhattan
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Lucyford wrote:

Hearing from the dps and healing scoundrels about their major annoyances from other classes would assist the guild in taking down those annoying operative healers and dps, imo. Probably one of the more beneficial summaries we could get, if someone feels up to writing it.


 Just staying on me is annoying enough. It's really hard for me to die with the spec I run and the biggest mistake people make is when they see they can't kill me they switch targets. I've said it many times before and I'll say it again: You don't need to kill a healer to beat a healer.

My HoTs are very good but if I'm getting a beatdown eventually I'll need to start casting things and if someone is on me that means stunning them first or trying to break los - all of this requires me to shift focus away from healing my teammates/objectives. So the biggest thing to remember is stay on the healer, even if you're not making much progress on his health bar you're keeping him occupied with self healing and that pretty much negates his purpose.

And I probably don't need to say this to the Watchmen but knockbacks should be used as interrupts, not openers or part of some retarded damage rotation. The other night some dumb jugg (Oniss I think) kept doing the same combo: Choke followed by throw followed by charge. That's three potential interrupts blown with a net of almost zero damage. Completely stupid.



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