Guardian PvP

[Veldryne]

I told nero I would help out with his guardian, since my main on another server is a guardian, and artorius asked for some general help playing a sentinal in pvp (since he is more used to ranged classes) So here it goes.



First things first, doesnt matter what spec you are on a Guardian, pvp in soresu stance.

This is done for a couple of reasons.

First- Guard. You can only use guard in guardian stance, and it is way too useful to give up. Sure you loose a tad bit of damage, but your own damage reduction is far higher. And even in dps specs (i actually run a focus build), you do respectable damage, and can live for a long long time if a healer is around. It keeps your teammates alive. This skill isnt limited to Guardians, anyone playing a tank class, be it shadow, or vanguard (or the sith equivalents) should always be using this in pvp. It helps relieve pressure on your team's healers, especially if you use it in conjunction with taunt.

Second- Guardian leap. Everyone on the ToR forums CRIES about lack of mobility. We have 3 jumps as a guardian, force leap, zealous leap and guardian leap. THe first two let you jump to an enemy with 30m and 10m ranges respectively. Force leap resets its cooldown when you use force push. Lastly, guardian leap. you cant use it without being in soresu stance. It lets you jump that same 30m to an ally. When  you do that jump the ally takes 20% less damage for the next little while. Also, the dps guardian pvp gear, your 2pc set bonus heals you a nice little chunk (usually around 3k) every time you use guardian leap. GL is only on something like a 30second cooldown. So every 30s you can get a nice chunk of health back.


Combining taunt, guardian leap, and guard, again even in a dps spec but staying in soresu you can save someone's bacon nearly as well as a healer can.
Guard- Target guarded takes 20% less damage, and any damage they do take is split 50/50 with you.
Tuant-Targed does 30% less damage unless they are attacking you
Guardian leap- Target takes 20% less damage (you can even get talents that apply this effect to you as well after using GL)




(as i think of more ill keep adding to this, that and as i have time)

[Veldryne]

(double post sorry but i needed to add this on here for artorius after a vent convo we had earlier)

Sentinals, are a one role class. DPS and thats it, and they are good at it, despite being substantially squishier than their single saber bretheren.

After farming tens of thousands of warzone marks already on 5 different characters now, i do have a bit of input for sentinals out there.


Sentinals play a lot like rogues in world of warcraft, if not in mechanics, then definately in playstyle and role. They are an extremely bursty class, and can scare the pants off of someone if they arent watching out for sentinals.

Most sentinals will run into a fight and tunnel vison, we have seen this for years with wow rogues. They focus so hard on their primary target that they get dropped really fast by a hard peel or hard switch.

I find an effective way to use them in premades, or to play one if that is your main class, is to be mobile and not stick on that one target. Sentinals have two great abilites for hard switches. The first being force leap, and the second being their vanish (or whatever its called, the dissappear for 4 seconds thingy)

Sit on a target for a while, doesnt really matter which one, but pay attention to the battlefield around you. Dont waste any of your big abilities, but if you have something that takes a while to build up to do crazy damage, get that rolling to start with. Then when you see a decent target nearby, switch unexpectedly, using the leap, or the vanish to position yourself on another target, and those abilites you have been rolling up, unleash them one after another on the new target. Often this target is a healer low on resources after healing a longer fight, someone unsuspecting, or even just a class you know to be fairly squishy.

Coordinating this with teammates, increases the use of the sentinal a lot by doing this, hopefully common sense. But if a player is attacking someone, and forces them to use a medpack already, or its a healer that they have been pestering for a while, or again someone at half health or something, having the bursty sentinal hard switch to that target can drop them in a couple global cooldowns. That burst often will overwhelm someone to the point that even a really geared or experienced healer cant save them.

In addition, another thing to watch out for, since sentinals dont have healing or tanking mechanics, is effective use of stuns, and counters. Rather than using them right away on someone you are burning down, and jacking up their resolve to the point they are immune right away, save them and use them on enemies you are NOT currently trying to drop. Trying to kill some BH and put some pressure on them, good. You run by an IA sittin in cover plinking while u are making that BH scurry, switch targets momentarily, hit the agent with a stun, and continue beating on the bounty hunter, it throws the agent off his game, even for a second adding some confusion, perhaps even saving a teammates life.

 This also works well used in conjunction with a hard switch. Rather than using that leap to get to your target, use it to get it to a target near him. Use the stun, or in the case of someone casting something (especially good on sages or sorcerers channeling force throw or force lightning) use your interrupt/counterspell type ability, then continue on to that main target. Again its going to cause that person you use it on to stop doing damage, or stop a heal, and lock out that ability for some time, giving your teammates more time to react.

The true role of any dps in pvp, should be more causing chaos, than actually burning any one person down, save perhaps the healer, and even then a hard switch is always the best way to drop a healer. Many healers, depending on gear can take the damage you give them, and live through it while taking you down bit by bit. I do it all the time on my sage dotting up someone beating on me, while i heal to full and they slowly bleed to death.




I know its a big read, sorry about that. If you guys have any questions feel free to ask. I dont do a lot of theorycrafting, never have. But i do play around with different builds a lot, and try different tactics. Hopefully I can help, or at least look into the information for you if I dont have the answer to a particular question.

[swam]

http://taugrim.com/

a guide writer I use for bounty hunter/ trooper pvp. some healing in there as well and general gameplay tips including keybinding etc.
Its especially worth checking out his smuggler gunslinger vids on how to be a beast with cover in pvp.

[Xanedan]

I'm still really new to the game, but the best tip I could give for any non-tank melee PvP spec is to stay on the edges of the fight, all the time, always.  Don't run into the middle of a massive crossfire.  This game's somewhat sketchy tab targetting, non clickable nameplates and fairly close maximum camera distance ensure that any tunnel visioning ranged class is going to target melee first simply for the difficulty of picking out any target behind you.

Run circles around the center of the action, and try to isolate your targets.  This is probably less of an issue with team support, but in randoms I'll be dead before I can get my DoTs up if I force leap into the middle of the chaos.

As an aside, I actually wanted to play a Sent because of the similarities between them and a HARP rogue from TBC which I enjoyed playing immensely.  

[Master Artorius Vidnyl]

Veldryne thanks again for the tips and for typing them out!  Looking forward to hitting the game with you again soon.

Cheers.

[Master Nero Attoru]

Wow guys, this is incredible!  Thanks for the info Veldryne, I'll definitely give that a try when I hit up PvP next time.