Guardian S&B Build

[Fass]

OP, don't use improved defensive stance once you get to end game and get some decent gear. It provides only a tiny increase in mitigation and protection. Not sure why T6 guards are using it.

The higher mit you have the higher each .% is worth. I have tried lots of stuffs and you simply don't need protection on a pure physical fight and the guardian's dps wont be severly increased by anything else from the general tree or anywhere else for that matter. Same goes for protection, you need 0 armor for a 100% protection fight. 5 points in improved def stance and then 5 points in iron or stone skin depending what you are facing. This is the reason I have 3 different speccs, one full prot, one full armor and one with both. 60% armor in provoke is rather neat.

[Boesch]

I'd echo that in general I like having Improved Defensive Stance on all of my soldiers. There are times when it is more than necessary but if you have the right selection of gear you can trade down on mitigation to pick up on hate or DPS as Moriala pointed out with Provoke stance.

[Redd]

Why I specc imp defstance? Cause without i have 57.1 mit in provoke, with i have 59.4 in provoke. So if i specc it, I basically have the survivability of tactic defence, while staying in Provoke. Its definitely worth it untill i get full on t6 bigpieces, simple as that.

I agree totally, and even once you have some more T6 big pieces you can swap around 2 points from imroved defensive to max sustained rage but thats about it.

Not speccing improved defensive on guard at all is silly.

[Chillee]

The higher mit you have the higher each .% is worth. I have tried lots of stuffs and you simply don't need protection on a pure physical fight and the guardian's dps wont be severly increased by anything else from the general tree or anywhere else for that matter. Same goes for protection, you need 0 armor for a 100% protection fight. 5 points in improved def stance and then 5 points in iron or stone skin depending what you are facing. This is the reason I have 3 different speccs, one full prot, one full armor and one with both. 60% armor in provoke is rather neat.

You may not get a big aggro boost from using those points to max sustained rage and/or savage strikes, but you aren't getting much of a survivability boost from the 1.8% or so extra mit, either. There are maybe a couple of encounters where the tiny bit of mitigation might make a difference. It's complete nonsense to pretend it makes much of an impact on a guard's toughness. Makes sense for conqs and especially tali dts since they're squish, but generally speaking a waste of time for guards. Other than the fact that guards, unlike dt and conq, don't have many decent places to invest the points anyway.

[magnum92]

You may not get a big aggro boost from using those points to max sustained rage and/or savage strikes, but you aren't getting much of a survivability boost from the 1.8% or so extra mit, either. There are maybe a couple of encounters where the tiny bit of mitigation might make a difference. It's complete nonsense to pretend it makes much of an impact on a guard's toughness. Makes sense for conqs and especially tali dts since they're squish, but generally speaking a waste of time for guards. Other than the fact that guards, unlike dt and conq, don't have many decent places to invest the points anyway.

Eh, Conqueror survive from bubbles, Dark templars survive from taps, Guardians survive from... high mit. So its like your logic is upside-down "Guardians only live from high mit, so its not big of a deal for a Guardian to get more mit...." 2% makes a big diffrence when tanking high hitting encounters. In t6 some of the bosses can do almost 4k hits every 2 seconds,with 2% extra mit it gives you 80hp every two seconds in that scenario, it does make a big diffrence, more then a greenheal. And lets be realistic about that little dps boost, how often will you pull aggro of another tank while you wouldnt without those points?

In some few encounters its not _really_ needed with idf, but in most of the endgame-fights, its hard to justify not to go with it, since guardians aggro ROCK in t5 and t6 as it is, theres absolutely no more need for aggro in these 2 raids.

[MisterClean]

If you have too many points and you don't know what to do with them..give em to me

On a serious note, I suppose that the right answer to this debate is "we now have the multispec! yayy"
For the 10% of encounters you absolutely need imp defense, have one spec. And have another spec for the rest of the game and enjoy your tiny gain of aggro

As a conq myself, I really love tanking with guards. They are reliable, aggro wise and resist' wise. I appreciate that they can stabilize our line of defense and give healers a break All tanks have their own role to play I guess

Edit: owned by Mori