SWTOR 4.0 Vigilance Guardian DPS guide written by Rydarus of The Ebon Hawk.
NOTE TO JUGGERNAUTS: Vengeance guide isn’t up yet due to finagling with the tables.
Contents
Hey, Rydarus here, rewriting this guide for another go around. You’ll notice a lot of information remains the same, but I’ve adjusted a lot of crucial points that I feel I failed to bring up in prior versions of the guide, and solidified my mentality in running the spec.
A few notes:
I’m now focusing full time on an “Alacrity” based guide. It may very well be not the only way to run this Discipline, but it’s the way I do it, and it’s what I’m going to teach. Guardians have transitioned from being a very decent Melee dps in 3.0, to being more of a Focus Sentinel during the 2.0 tier. We have amazing AOE, but weak single target and higher immobility. We have mediocre burst and mediocre sustained DPS, but again, we have very strong AOE. The spec is still immensely fun to play however, and with a bit of upkeep and work, you too can bring it into HM and NiM raiding.
Enure:
Saber Ward:
With Daunting Presence
With Through Peace
With Intercessor:
Utilities can vary, but these are a few recommended basic builds. You will never need a build outside of these. None of the new 4.0 utilities are useful at all for PVE. Not a single one.
Skillful / Masterful / Heroic
Traditional Build (Sparky, Malaphar, Sword Squadron, Revanite Commanders, Underlurker SM, Master Blaster, Revan SM, Coratanni SM)
The Reflector (Bulo, Torque, Karraga The Unyielding)
The Slayer of the Ruined World (Colossal Monolith)
Avenger (Underlurker HM)
Revanchist (Revan HM)
My gearing method is upon which my guide is based. I make no claims that it is optimal, it’s just how I play. (However I highly suspect it’s close to optimal if it isn’t already.)
Enhancements and Augment Setup to get to BiS in 224s:
208 Goal
2 Initiative Enhancements + 6 Accuracy Augments = 712 Accuracy Rating
3 Quick Savant Enhancements + 6 Alacrity Augments= 849 Alacrity Rating
5 Adept Enhancements + 2 Critical Augments = 831 Critical Rating
216 Goal
2 Initiative Enhancements+ 6 Accuracy Augments = 742 Accuracy Rating
3 Quick Savant Enhancements + 6 Alacrity Augments = 894 Alacrity Rating
5 Adept Enhancements + 2 Critical Augments = 902 Critical
220 goal
2 Initiative Enhancements + 5 Accuracy Augments =685 Accuracy Rating
3 Quick Savant Enhancements + 5 Alacrity Augments =845 Alacrity Rating
5 Adept Enhancements + 4 Critical Augments = 1092 Critical Rating
224 goal
2 Initiative Enhancements + 5 Accuracy Augments = 701 Accuracy Rating
3 Quick Savant Enhancements + 6 Alacrity Augments = 869 Alacrity
5 Adept Enhancements + 2 Critical Augments = 1132 Critical Rating
Before we begin to learn the rotation of the Vigilance rotation itself, you first have to commit to memory the various “Procs” that generate various outcomes and abilities in Vigilance. There are 4 Major Procs and Passive Effects in Vigilance and 1 Minor Proc.
Abilities (Not a priority system. Cooldowns are an approximation and ARE AFFECTED by Alacrity)
Normal:
With Zen Strike proper usage
General:
Without Keening:
With Keening:
Does low damage over 4 seconds and stuns the target. Generates 3 Focus OVER TIME.
Adrenals:
It’s an adrenal. It gives stats. Buy them, use them on CD / when necessary.
Strike: Junk ability – dump them
Slash: Junk ability – dump them
This section features openers, priority, rotation strategy, clipping master strike, tips and tricks, and AoE priority
Since 2.6 and the major Vigilance improvements, plus the changes made in 3.0, the Vigilance rotation is far more set in stone. Vigilance has very little RNG besides crits, but most players have an inaccurate or simplified rotation. The general BiSRAID opener in Vigilance is:
You can always do this opener of you experience downtime, provided they are all off cooldown, so for example if you have downtime on the boss, afterwards, you want to use some combination of the pre Overhead Slash abilities, generate enough focus, then Overhead Slash, Master Strike, Plasma Brand, etc.
After the opener, you then flow into the priority system.
1: Plasma Brand, Overhead Slash, and Blade Storm all ABSOLUTELY on cooldown, no questions asked. Priority flows from top to bottom in worst case scenario (IE everything is off CD) UNLESS Blade Dance is off CD, then repeat opener beginning from Overhead Slash.You should be using Plasma every 11 seconds, Overhead Slash and Blade Storm every 8.2 seconds. This means that occasionally Blade Storm will be used with only 1 stack of Force Rush. That is fine in most cases.
The very best Vigilance Guardians keep all 3 on CD and never lose a Blade Storm crit by delaying Dispatch until the stack is actually needed and using Vigilant Thrust in it’s stead. If you delay one DoT by a GCD, what happens is the one that was delayed will collide with another, forcing you to delay one DOT again in order to realign the rotation. If you use all 3 abilities, the maximum you spend is 8 focus, therefore the magic number of Vigilance is 8. Make sure you have 8 focus every time you start a DoT cycle, but at the same time if you are at a position where Plasma Brand is your first attack and you already have Blade Storm on cooldown, you only need 5 Focus to use Plasma Brand and Overhead Slash, but you need 8 to use Overhead Slash THEN Plasma Brand. Also, every 32.616 seconds, Overhead Slash is used twice in one Plasma Brand, and the window after, Blade Storm is used twice in one window. This is the most resource intensive of the rotation, and where you ABSOLUTELY need extra resource in order to come out still rotationally sound.
2: Blade Dance is the second most important ability on the list if you are following the above priority system down to the very millisecond. If you can keep all 3 dots on cooldown with no delay, WHILE using Blade Dance every 11 seconds, and making sure to use Dispatch every time Keening is up to keep your stacks of Force Rush up, you have officially accomplished the main goal of the spec.
In order to do this, you want to try and make it so that Blade Dance is only activated when Plasma Brand, Overhead Slash, and Blade Storm all have more than 2.74 seconds left on the CD.
3:The Floating Force Rushers (Dispatch+Keening and Vigilant Thrust)These two abilities, I have named as such because they are the abilities that you use to round out your force rush usage. During the double Blade Storm window, you still only have 1 Force Rush Stack from Overhead Slash and and another from Plasma Brand. In this 11 second window, to get the 4 stacks required for Blade Storm, in that 11 you need a combination of luck and skill to MAXIMIZE Force Rush generation, otherwise you will end up with only 1 stack. If you tank at all, this is similar to the taunt -> AOE Taunt “Taunt opener,” you use lower CD abilities before longer CD abilities (in this case an ICD) staggered across the rotation in order to maintain DPS. When first learning the rotation, do not occupy yourself with this.
The idea goes that you never want to use Dispatch immediately when it procs, because if the Blade Storm sandwich window appears, you don’t have dispatch available. I consistently delay dispatch by 10 seconds or more for at least half of the ICD, generally if you just procced dispatch and feel like using it, don’t. Vigilant Thrust instead. Prioritizing Vigilant Thrust over Dispatch will fix the Force Rush issue as well as humanly possible, after that it’s pretty much getting lucky keening procs.
3A: Vigilant Thrust is your primary high damage filler and does extreme damage, but the rotation is too tight to use it on cooldown. It should be used when there is MORE THAN 1 opponent or when you are not in dire need of resource and need a filler. It also spreads DoTs via Burning Storm. Generally you want to use Vigilant Thrust as often as possible without disturbing resource regeneration.
3B: Dispatch with Keening is very important. When getting the proc, you have 20 seconds to use it, so while you don’t need to activate it immediately, as there are other more important abilities, you need to make sure you don’t accidentally drop the buff. You should almost never use it when it immediately procs. See above.
4: Sundering Strike is your highest priority filler. Use it on CD as long as you don’t cap out or waste the majority of it’s resource gain. In certain situations, Sundering Strike is the most important ability in your rotation, at least in priority. Consider this situation: Sundering Strike is off cooldown, and Master Strike is off cooldown,and you have 4.5 seconds until you need to use Plasma Brand. Following the priority system verbatim, would mean this ability queue would occur:
But this isn’t optimal! Because you can reset the CD of Master Strike anyway, you can actually push it back a little farther! Therefore, the actual optimal rotation prioritizes Sundering Strike in this particular pass of the rotation, because you can’t reset sundering strike, and it’s your primary focus builder! The actual optimal rotation would be:
Same outcome, but the next time you do Sundering Strike, you get it 3 seconds earlier! In addition, it also generates 2% extra damage for 15 seconds every 30 seconds! (2pc Set Bonus)
5: Saber Throw is your Secondary Filler/Ranged Move
6: Combat Focus should be used when you absolutely need focus and Sundering Strike is on CD or you don’t have another GCD to spare.
7: Force Stasis is a weak damage filler but should be used when you need more than 1 resource in the next GCD due to abilities coming off CD and none of the above focus generating fillers are available.
8: Force Push mediocre filler but has a range, also useable as a knockback. Good when topped out on focus and Vigilant Thrust is NOT AVAILABLE.
10: Dispatch (Non Keening) This is absolutely your last priority fillers on a dummy, as it damages the stability of your rotation. Using this will ruin your DoT application. On a boss, it should be used when you are being outranged. The only time this is good to use is in heavy AOE phases that guarantee you receive 2 focus every 9 seconds (9 seconds is the CD on Dispatch.)
AOE in Vigilance is fairly simplistic, and contrary to popular belief, is NOT based on a priority system, NOR a set rotation. This system is designed to swap all damage towards AOE. The principle behind this is to increase your cyclone slash / sweeping slash damage using your DoTs, and keeping at least one DoT on all encountered enemies at once.
As Plasma Brand / Shatter is your longest DoT, you use Plasma Brand / Shatter to maintain the Cyclone Slash / Sweeping Slash Damage Buff. Alternate with Plasma Brand / Shatter with Overhead Slash / Impale to maintain the debuff the entire time, use Vigilant Thrust / Vengeful Slam on cooldown, and Cyclone / Sweeping spam for days. It’s important NOT to delay Vigilant Thrust / Vengeful Slam for Plasma Brand / Shatter, as this lowers your aoe, this is why you cycle Overhead Slash in to cover the alternate DoT cycle, because Vigilant Thrust / Vengeful Slam does not actually refresh DoTs, only spreads them if they are not already present.
The Vigilance / Vengeance Rotation lasts 11 seconds for a minor rotation, and every Major Rotation is 32.616 seconds long, and a full circuit is 65.232 seconds assuming the rotation is carried out perfectly. Every major rotation, the DoT’s realign in a way similar to the opener for another pass at the rotation.
In every Vigilance/Vengeance minor rotation, you will perform:
1 Plasma Brand/Shatter
1.3 Overhead Slashes/Impales (The decimal is because the cooldown for Overhead Slash / Impale and Blade Storm ‘/ Force Scream is 75% of the CD of Plasma Brand / Shatter, every few Plasma Brands / Shatters there is an extra Overhead Slash / Impale and Blade Storm / Force Scream inside the cooldown of Plasma Brand.
1.3 Blade Storms/Force Screams
1 Master Strikes/Ravages
1-3 filler GCDs, 1 of them being Dispatch/Vicious Throw when it procs. Due to the nature of Dispatch drifting in the rotation, SOMETIMES you will use it, sometimes you will not. The reason for the variable number of filler GCDs is due to the way Overhead Slash / Impale and Blade Storm / Force Scream drifting inside the CD of Plasma Brand
In addition, every 11 seconds of a Vigilance / Vengeance rotation requires 8 Focus/Rage throughout the entire cycle. 8 is the magic Vigilance / Vengeance number. Usually, a Sundering Strike/Sundering Assault or Combat Focus/Enrage with a Force Sweep/Smash or Saber Throw will fulfill this purpose. Combat Focus/Enrage can also be used while using an ability (besides Master Strike/Ravage) so that a filler in the filler window can consume resource rather than burning it.
Also, every 32.3 seconds or so, there’s a double Overhead Slash window and a double Blade Storm window. These windows are far more resource intensive, and the latter window spends 2 more Force Rush than they normally do.
Many players, especially players who aren’t raiding in bleeding edge content, are told that “Dead DPS do no damage.” This is WHOLLY TRUE. However, there is one caveat: A DPS that is not doing as much effective damage as he or she can, is less than optimal.
DPS Myths:
Myth 1: You will never be able to translate your dummy DPS to boss. FALSE. Every iota of damage you do on a dummy is POSSIBLE on a boss. Every DPS should do as much damage as possible without endangering the health of the group, and on most boss fights you should be losing very little DPS when compared to dummy, and if there are adds, you should be GAINING DPS!!!
Myth 2: Melee DPS useless FALSE. Melee are disadvantaged, however, we are fully capable of doing competitive damage. Great MDPS can match or exceed their RDPS cousins, it’s all in the uptime. Uptime must be seized and taken advantage of. Every DPS must learn how to stick to the target, adjust to the circumstance, and flow back into combat smoothly and seamlessly.
“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”
- Bruce Lee
Ask yourself:
Saber Reflect Tips and Tricks:
For those who have problems with Vigilance and the hallmarks of a good parse, I have included a list of simplistic equations to determine how to know whether your Vigilance Rotation is good:
Time Conversion equations (Outdated, just use Parsely’s Ability Usage Tool)
Equation for detection of abilities usage per second:
Example: Ability A was used 34 times in 300 seconds. Using D/A=G we end up with: 300/34=8.8235 second gap between ability activation.
Master Strike/Ravage/other 3 tick ability Specific equation:
In this case, if D=300 and A=99, the equation would be 300/ (1/3*99)=9.09 second gap between ability activations.
What to Check For?
(Note that it is impossible to actually meet these numbers due to lag, but getting within .1 seconds is a good target)
How to Practice?
The former highest skill Vigilance/Vengeance Guardian, Westfall, claims to parse for the duration of the “Today Show.” This generally means he parses for a grand total of 20 minutes a day in one straight parse.
“In order to fully commit your rotation to memory for usage on a boss, you must first learn every single way to screw up your rotation” (Credit to Antonica/Daharel)
This means you go through with every parse you have regardless of mistakes to learn your rotation inside out. Vigilance is an easy to learn but hard to master spec, and the rotation SEEMS easy to pick up but has some of the most ruthless dot reapplication rotations in the entire game.
Sample Parse (Note: Gear used was optimized 216 and 220s with 216 left side and a Revanite Relic. I also had a 224 offhand.
(Note2: I have a higher parse available, but as dissecting each parse I put up, which is relatively frequent, for a parse analysis is fairly inefficient, I will always analyze a parse of my own every month, but keep a link or image of my ABSOLUTE MOST RECENT parse.)
Note 3: Parsely can misround a lot, don’t be shocked if there’s .1 or .2 seconds off in your usages.
Parse Analysis:
6400 on the 1.5 million health dummy.
http://parsely.io/parser/view/81100/10
Ability usages:
Blade Dance/Ravage every 10.86 seconds
Plasma Brand / Shatter every 11.2 seconds
Overhead Slash / Force Scream every 8.392 seconds
Blade Storm / Force Scream every 8.392 seconds
APM at 39.34
Videos
twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/rydarus/profile (3.0)
1.5 mil dummy parse: http://www.twitch.tv/rydarus/v/12856552
HM Underlurker (3.0)
HM Torque (3.0)
If you don’t know who I am, I’m Rydarus, AKA “Alácrity.” I was one of the more outspoken proponents of alacrity as a stat in 3.0, and 4.0 has only solidified my obsession with the stat. I’ve perfected and tinkered my approach to Vig/Veng under the principles of DoT uptime, and I hope to spread the “proper” way to run Vigilance/Vengeance to other players. I hope you find the guide useful.
This guide has and will always be written about how I play this spec.
I’d like to thank many people for helping me write this guide:
SWTOR 3.0 Combat Sentinel Guide by Vulkk
SWTOR 3.0 Infiltration Shadow DPS Guide by Evolixe
SWTOR Festival of Splendor Event Guide
SWTOR 3.0 Corruption Sorcerer Healing Guide by OrderkenSWTOR 3.0 Commando Combat Medic Healing Guide by Orderken