5.0 Class Guides/ SWTOR

SWTOR 5.0 Focus Guardian PvE Guide by Skyesora

Dulfy 93 Comments Jan 28, 2017

SWTOR 5.0 Focus Guardian PvE Guide by Skyesora.

Intro to 5.0 Focus Guardian

Hey everyone! I’m Skyesora, and somehow I’ve found myself with the task of writing a class guide. If you’re here, I hope that means you’re interested in playing Focus Guardian and want to learn about the discipline. While I’m not the most accomplished or longest-tenured player, I have been practicing and studying Guardian DPS for a while and this guide represents my attempt to share my knowledge with people interested in learning. What follows is a compilation of everything I know about Focus Guardian. This guide is focused on end-game PvE content, but I will make a point of mentioning when the same information applies to both PvE and PvP.

There’s a lot to say, so let’s get into it. Be prepared for a long read!

Discipline Overview

“The ways of the Force can reveal themselves to a Jedi Knight through intense concentration and, more importantly, focus. The Focus Guardian uses debilitating bursts of lightsaber strikes and Force powers to exhaust their foes, crushing any hopes they had of mounting an effective offense.”

Focus is the burst discipline for Guardian DPS, meaning it is meant to deliver damage to a target in large, single-hit abilities (though there are two damage over time (DoT) abilities, one of them a full DoT and one of them a half DoT, used in the rotation). It has excellent mobility, smooth target swapping, and decent area of effect (AoE) damage per second (DPS),with the drawback of a short but complex rotation and mediocre single target DPS. Resource management can also become difficult if the rotation gets misaligned. As a Guardian, you have arguably the best set of defensive cooldowns (DCDs) in the game except for ranged-Guardian-with-self-heals-and-higher-DPSCommando/Mercenaries (someday, we’ll reclaim the survivability crown!), good raid utility, and one of the most dynamic abilities in the game, Saber Reflect. Additionally, you can now guard another player with no penalty to yourself (which, at the time of writing, can be abused in PvP). The DPS potential is not the highest, but is sufficientto be competitive in all content. A good Focus Guardian has a lot to offer any group.

Ratings relative to other classes based upon personal experience:

• Single target DPS: 5/10 – Both Guardian DPS disciplines are about equal in terms of single target damage and end up fairly mediocre. Focus theoretically has a slightly lower DPS potential, but they’re very similar in my experience. This rating goes as high as 10/10 in fights when Saber Reflect can safely be used to contribute to your DPS, such as Thrasher or Kephess.
• AoE DPS: 7/10 – There is some nice potential for area of effect damage with supercritting Force Sweep and Cyclone Slash paired with Force Lash, though it will fall behind many disciplines that can DoT spread (Vigilance) or have heavy damaging effects that can be applied to multiple targets (Combat).
• Rotation difficulty: 7/10 – The Focus rotation isn’t particularly long but there are a lot of abilities, buffs, and effects to manage, and misplacing one ability will almost definitely cause the entire thing to fall apart. Perfect execution will require a good amount of practice.
• Group Utility: 5/10 – Guardians certainly don’t have the most group utility of any class, but they can provide a group with many benefits. They can provide group damage reduction through the Guardianship utility and Guard and have a plethora of stuns and interrupts. With heavy armor and great defensive cooldowns, they can cover for a tank in case of emergency.Finally, Saber Reflectcan almost win some fights single-handedly. The class isn’t as versatile as others, but a Guardian in the right hands is an asset to any group.
• RNG Dependency:3/10 – Nothing for the execution ofthe Focus rotation is dependent on RNG. Critical hits do significantly affect the damage output, however, and Focus has one of the widest variations in its DPS.
• Burst Capability: 8/10 – Focus boasts great burst damage, with hard-hitting abilities combined with rotational buffs that increase damage done during certain windows and a huge bonus to critical hit damage. In both PvE and PvP, you can burst down targets with the best of them.
• Execute Bonus: 4/10 – At sub-30% health, Focus gains access to Dispatch, which does more damage than most filler abilities. Proper usage will amount to a modest boost in DPS without sacrificing rotational integrity.

Changes in 5.0

Several things were changed about the Guardian class. Stances were removed and turned into a passive ability within the discipline tree. The damage of Blade Storm was nerfed slightly. The biggest change was the removal of the two global cooldown (GCD) channeled Blade Dance, it having been replaced by the instant Blade Barrage. Guardians now have no channeled or casted abilities and should be able to maintain full uptime on a moving target. This fact is a great quality of life improvement in both PvE and PvP, as Guardians are now incredibly mobile. Additionally, many old utilities have either been combined, removed, or changed, while some new ones were added. Notably, there is a new utility that is mandatory for maximum sustained DPS in legendary tier (Persistent Chill). There was only one change specific to the Focus discipline, as it got a nice new level 68 combat proficiency that is essential for resource management in the new rotation.

Optimal Stat Balance

Due to the RNG nature of obtaining gear through Galactic Command, it will be very difficult to attain any theoretically ideal balance of stats (though the changes in 5.1 will help mitigate this randomness). There is a big jump in stats between tiers of gear, but the amount by which the stats jump is inconsistent. Therefore, I will provide some guidelines to follow as you gear up so that you can stay close to the ideal balance. These should not be taken as hard rules save for accuracy.

With few exceptions, all tertiary stat should be put into accuracy, critical, and alacrity. Focus benefits more than most disciplines from critical because of its 15% increase in critical hit damage bonus and constant supercrits.In general, I find that if you are unsure, dump extra stats into critical if possible. The balance I currently use is 1.6-1.7:1 critical to alacrity with the mastery stim. At upper tiers, it is theoretically ideal for some stat to be put into mastery, but the difference in DPS is negligible.

To gear up, you’ll want some combination of the following (it’s a lot more complicated than in 4.0):

• Armor set: Vindicator’s set bonus (it’s mislabeled as Weaponmaster in 5.0 gear, but if you mouseover it still says "Ultimate Exarch Vindicator’s")
• Gear mods: Versatile hilt and armorings; unlettered lethal mods; and initiative, adept, and quick savant enhancements (keep the stat balance that comes in the set bonus gear and balance stats with earpieces, implants, crystals, and augments)
• Earpiece and implants: Initiative, adept, or quick savant (depending on stat balance)
• Relics: Focused Retribution and Serendipitous Assault (token grade, as in, with critical as a base stat included on the relic)
• Augments: Critical and alacrity augments to balance stats as needed, with some accuracy augments to achieve 110% accuracy and some versatile augments for mastery when capped out on critical and alacrity
• Crystals: Advanced Eviscerating crystals, possibly Advanced Hawkeye or Advanced War Hero’s crystals based upon stat balance

Using these gearing pieces, this is the stat balance I recommend (this stat balance is very different from what Bant recommends because he assumes the accuracy stim):

• Accuracy: 110% and as little beyond that as possible. This translates to a stat value of 737. I do not recommend going below that because missing an interrupt or a stun or not getting a Heightened Power proc are worse than slightly lower theoretical DPS. Here are some methods for getting as close as possible (enhancements are equivalent to earpieces and implants for tertiary stats):
• 230 gear:
• 2x Enhancement + 4x augment = 746
• 3x Enhancement + stim = 783 or 5x Augment + stim = 720
• 234 gear (this tier is bad):
• 4x Enhancement = 760
• 3x Enhancement + stim = 810 or 5x Augment + stim = 720
• 236 gear:
• 8x Augment = 768
• 2x Enhancement + 1x Augment + stim = 736
• 240 gear:
• 8x Augment = 768 or 3x Enhancement + 1x Augment = 711
• 2x Enhancement + 1x Augment + stim = 746
• 242 gear:
• 3x Enhancement + 1x Augment = 741
• 1x Enhancement + 3x Augment + stim = 743
• Critical: This should be the first place you look to allocate stats once you have enough accuracy. Get as high of a critical chance and bonus damage as possible without sacrificing other stats. You’ll want to shoot for a critical stat of at least 1700. As a side note, remember that mastery increases your critical chance but not critical bonus damage.
• Alacrity: After critical, alacrity takes next priority for stat allocation. The main benefit of alacrity for Focus is the duration of buffs relative to the GCD is increased – mainly, the heightened power window that occurs after each Focused Burst. Since there is no danger of effects running into each other with correct rotation execution, alacrity can be added without any problem. You’ll want to shoot for 1000-1200 alacrity stat or a bonus of 9% – 11%.
• Other stats: Both power and mastery give flat increases to stats and have no diminishing returns, with every 5 points in mastery giving 1 additional bonus damage and a small critical chance increase and every 4.2 points in power giving 1 additional bonus damage. Since both critical and alacrity have diminishing returns, there is a point where it will be more beneficial to put excess stat into power or mastery. You might hit that point for PvE if you decide to stack a lot of critical or run the accuracy stim. It’s something to keep in mind for PvP as you’ll gain a lot of tertiary stat from the accuracy you swap out (if you decide to make a separate PvP set).
• You’re a DPS, so defense, shield, and absorb should all be 0. Even with all the tertiary stat you have compared to before, there’s still no room for wasting stats. Any DPS you can put out on a target is valuable!

Abilities and Utilities

Here is a list of all active and passive abilities and class utilities for the Focus Guardian. I encourage you to become familiar with them so you are better equipped to make the right decision in the heat of battle.

Combat Proficiencies

The passives important to making the rotation work are bolded. The rest contribute in some way to increasing your damage output except for Protective Focus, which is a nice defensive buff.

	Swelling Winds Granted level 12	Increases the damage dealt by Force Sweep by 40% and reduces the cooldowns of Force Sweep and Focused Burst by 3 seconds each.
	Shii-cho Mastery Granted level 16	Increases armor penetration by 15% and Force attack damage by 3%
	Saber Strength Granted level 20	Increases the damage you deal with saber attacks by 5%
	Focused Resonance Granted level 24	Increases the critical strike damage of all attacks by 15%
	Momentum Granted level 28	Reduces the cooldown of Zealous Leap by 3 seconds and causes Force Leap and Zealous leap to make your next Blade Storm deal 5% more damage and generate 1 focus, rather than consume focus.
	Zephyrean Slash Granted level 32	Strike, Sundering Strike, Slash, Cyclone Slash, Riposte, Blade Storm, Dispatch, and Concentrated Slice reduce the active cooldowns of Force Sweep, Focused Burst, and Zealous Leap by 1 second and Combat Focus by 2 seconds.
	Felling Blow Granted level 36	Force Leap and Zealous Leap make your next Force Sweep or Focused Burst used within 20 seconds an automatic critical hit.
	Heightened Power Granted level 40	Increases all damage dealt by 5% for 6 seconds after dealing damage with Force Sweep or Focused Burst. This effect cannot occur more than once every 8 seconds.
	Singularity Granted level 44	Combat Focus and Force Exhaustion grant Singularity, increasing the damage dealt by your next Force Sweep or Focused Burst by 15% and making your next Force Sweep or Focused Burst consume no focus. Additionally, the cooldown of Combat Focus is reduced by 15 seconds, and Combat Focus generates an additional 6 focus over 8 seconds when used.
	Gravity Defiance Granted level 48	Zealous Leap and Force Exhaustion consume 1 less focus.
	Swift Slash Granted level 52	Increases the critical strike chance of Dispatch and Concentrated Slice by 5%. Additionally, Guardian Leap now purges all movement-impairing effects.
	Force Lash Granted level 56	Slash, Cyclone Slash, and Riposte deal additional Force energy damage.
	Concentrated Power Granted level 60	Concentrated Slice enables Riposte and beats down its target for 45 seconds. Beat Down targets take 5% more damage from melee attacks.
	Protective Focus Granted Level 64	Activating Focused Burst or Force Sweep increases your damage reduction by 5% for 6 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 8 seconds.
	Focused Vision Granted level 68	Force Exhaustion grants Focused Vision, making your next Zealous Leap or Concentrated Slice consume no focus.

Abilities

These are all the abilities, offensive and defensive, that you will be using.

Offensive:

	Blade Barrage	Cost: 0 focus Cooldown: 18 seconds Range: 4 meters Deals decent weapon damage in a series of lightsaber strikes for no cost. Replaces Blade Dance from pre-5.0.
	Blade Storm	Cost: 4 focus Cooldown: 12 seconds Range: 10 meters Hits the target with a wave of Force energy for kinetic damage and stuns standard or weak enemies for 4 seconds. Also grants Vindicator’s Critical Bonus with 6-piece set bonus once per minute. Filler ability.
	Concentrated Slice	Cost: 5 focus Cooldown: 9 seconds Range: 4 meters Slices the target for high weapon damage. Enables Riposte with Concentrated Power, and beats down the target (5% more damage from melee attacks). Your hardest hitting ability.
	Cyclone Slash	Cost: 3 focus Cooldown: 0 seconds Range: 5 meters Your frontal cleave, hits up to 8 enemies in front of you within 5 meters for decent weapon damage.
	Dispatch	Cost: 3 focus Cooldown: 10 seconds Range: 10 meters Throws your saber at the target with less than 30% health for high weapon damage. Execute move.
	Focused Burst	Cost: 3 focus Cooldown: 15 seconds Range: 10 meters Blasts the target with Force Energy for kinetic damage. Your second hardest hitting ability, grants Heightened Power when it DEALS DAMAGE, not upon activation.
	Force Exhaustion	Cost: 4 focus Cooldown: 18 seconds Range: 10 meters Slows the target from 50% to 5% movement speed over 3 seconds, dealing a small amount of damage each second, and crushing them for moderate damage after 3 seconds. One of two DoT effects you apply.
	Force Leap	Generates: 3 focus Cooldown: 15 seconds Range: 30 meters Leaps to a distant target, immobilizing them for 2 seconds and interrupting their current action. Generates 3 focus and cannot be used against targets in cover. Gap closer.
	Force Sweep	Cost: 3 focus Cooldown: 15 seconds Range: 5 meters 360-AoE centered upon your character that deals decent kinetic damage to up to 8 enemies within 5 meters and grants Heightened Power (again, when it deals damage).
	Freezing Force	Cost: 2 focus Cooldown: 0 Seconds Range: 8 meters 360-AoE centered upon your character that slows affected targets and hits for a tiny amount of elemental damage. Applies a hard-hitting DoT with Persistent Chill utility that should always be taken.
	Riposte	Cost: 2 focus Cooldown: 6 seconds Range: 4 meters Deals moderate weapon damage and cannot be defended or miss in any way. Only usable after defending an attack or if one of your attacks misses. Enabled by Concentrated Slice with Concentrated Power. Filler ability.
	Saber Throw	Generates: 3 focus Cooldown: 30 seconds Range: 30 meters Throws your saber for moderate weapon damage and generates 3 focus. Should only be used if you get ranged or are switching to a far target without Force Leap.
	Slash	Cost: 3 focus Cooldown: 0 seconds Range: 4 meter Deals low weapon damage to the target. Should never be used in the standard rotation.
	Sundering Strike	Generates: 7 focus Cooldown: 15 seconds Range: 4 meters Deals low weapon damage, sunders the target (20% armor reduction) and generates 7 focus. Your secondary Focus generator, also grants Vindicator’s Damage Bonus with 2-piece set bonus once every 30 seconds.
	Slash	Generates: 2 focus Cooldown: 0 seconds Range: 4 meters Deals low weapon damage over a series of saber strikes and generates 2 focus. Should never be used in the standard rotation.
	Zealous Leap	Cost: 2 focus Cooldown: 15 seconds Range: 10 meters Leaps to the target, dealing moderate weapon damage. CAN be used against targets in cover. Be careful when using this ability if there is AoE in melee range of the target, as you will leap into it.

Defensive:

	Blade Blitz	Moves you quickly 20 meters in the direction your character is facing and increases defense chance by 100% while blitzing (1 second). Useful for cheesing many mechanics or as a gap closer.
	Enure	Gives you a 10 second “loan” of 30% health. Useful if your healers need an extra few seconds to get to you or for surviving large damage spikes.
	Focused Defense	Grants 12 charges of Focused Defense, which are consumed and heal you upon damage taken. When taking constant damage, effectively acts as a second life.
	Saber Reflect	Redirects all direct single-targetranged, Force, and tech attacks back at the source for 3 seconds (5 with utility). The almighty reflect, its utility ranges from cheesing mechanics to being the largest damage contribution in some fights.
	Saber Ward	Increases melee and ranged defense by 50% and absorbs 25% of all Force and tech damage for 12 seconds. A very strong DCD that should be used when taking a lot of incoming damage, ideally preemptively.

Utility/Other:

	Awe	AoE soft stun that breaks on damage taken. Useful for crowd control and can interrupt non-boss immune adds.
	Challenging Call	Threat drop disguised as an AoE taunt and group-wide damage reduction with a utility that should always be taken.
	Combat Focus	Immediately generates 6 focus plus 6 more over 8 seconds. Integral to your rotation.
	Force Kick	Class hard interrupt. USE IT.
	Force Push	Knocks the target back 20 meters, stuns them for 2 seconds, and finishes the cooldown on Force Leap. Useful as an interrupt on non-physics immune adds or for a way to immediately jump to a different target.
	Force Stasis	Class hard stun.
	Guard	Reduces the affected ally’s damage taken by 5% and their threat generation by 25%. Also transfers 50% of incoming damage from players to you. Not used very often in PvE but has its moments, and can be abused in PvP.
	Guardian Leap	Leaps to a friendly target, dropping their threat and giving them a 20% damage reduction for 6 seconds. Purges all movement-impairing effects with Swift Slash. Useful on healers or DPS drawing too much attention from adds, and can be used as an escape if there is an ally in range.
	Resolute	Class stun break.
	Taunt	Forces a PvE target to attack you for 6 seconds and gives you top threat on the target. Will be overridden if another player taunts after you. In PvP, causes the target to deal 30% less damage to targets other than you for 6 seconds.

Utilities

There are four tiers of utilities, and you must have at least 2 ability points per tier invested to access the next tier. What that means is you need 2 points to access masterful, 4 to access heroic, and 6 to access legendary. It does not matter where these points are invested, you just need that many in total (so, for example, you could have 3 in skillful and 1 in masterful and heroic would then be unlocked). For each, I have denoted how useful they are and how often I find myself taking it from 0-5, where

0 = never taken in PvE

1 = might be useful on a handful of fights but should only be taken as a last resort

2 = situationally very helpful; often useless

3 = Always has a use but not always the strongest

4 = Very useful in most fights

5 = Mandatory; always taken

These ratings are based upon my playstyle and personal experience, so your mileage may vary.

Skillful:

	Second Wind Reduces the cooldown of Resolute by 30 seconds and causes Resolute to heal you for 10% of your maximum health when used.	2: There are situations where having your CC break on a shorter cooldown is nice – Torque’s magnetic clamps come to mind – so there are undoubtedly some fights where this is helpful. There are usually better options.
	Battlefield Command Getting attacked reduces the active cooldown of Force Leap by 1 second. This effect cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.	4: One of the greatest challenges for melee classes is staying in melee range. When you’re taking damage (which is constantly in most fights), this utility causes your primary gap closer to have a much shorter cooldown, helping to address one of the biggest weaknesses of melee.
	Debilitation Blade Barrage immobilizes the target for 3 seconds.	0: In PvE, pretty much everything you fight will be immune to stuns and movement-impairing effects, rendering this utility useless. It goes without saying that you want this at all times in PvP.
	Trailblazer Cyclone Slash deals 25% more damage.	4: One of the best utilities in the game for dealing with loads of adds. In practice, it isn’t usually a good idea to sell out for AoEfor the Focus Discipline. Even when you can’t,though, it can still be handy as there are adds in most boss fights.
	Narrowed Focus Taking non-periodic area of effect damage generates 2 focus. This effect cannot occur more than once per second.	3: In fights where you’re breaking your rotation a lot, which can starve you of resource since Combat Focus has a long cooldown, the extra bit of focus from taking AoE damage can be a lifesaver. Don’t rely on damage intake to keep your rotation together, however.
	Defiance You generate 4 focus when stunned, immobilized, put to sleep, or knocked around.	0: This could be useful for fights with a lot of stuns or knockbacks, such as Colossal Monolith, but your focus generation shouldn’t be a problem and there are far better ways to spend a utility point.

Masterful:

	Gather Strength Whenever your movement is impaired, you gain a 10% damage bonus to your next ability that consumes focus. This effect can stack up to 5 times and lasts 15 seconds.	2: Most fights do not impair the movement of DPS players, but in those that do –Underlurker – this utility can contribute significantly to your damage output. In PvP, you will want this all the time.
	Purifying Sweep For the Defense discipline, Force Sweep slows the targets it damages by 60% for 10 seconds. For the Vigilance and Focus disciplines, Force Sweep and Vigilant Thrust sunder the targets they damage for 45 seconds. Sundered targets have their armor rating decreased by 20%.	4: This is another utility that is very helpful for dealing with adds. It’s not quite as strong as Trailblazer, as the armor reduction won’t play out on adds that aren’t around for more than a few seconds (which is most of them), but it’s still quite powerful.
	Guardianship Challenging Call protects all allies within range, excluding yourself, granting Guardianship, which absorbs a moderate amount of damage. Lasts 10 seconds.	5: The damage reduction Guardianship provides is easy to underestimate. Whether it be mitigating raidwide damage or taking a chunk off a big hit, this utility is vital in PvE. This utility gives all nearby allies a shield that absorbs about 4k damage, which may not sound like much, but across 7 group members, its effect size is roughly the same as a free supercrit Deliverance/Dark Infusion or Underworld Medicine/Kolto Injection.
	Pulse Reduces the cooldown of Force Stasis by 15 seconds.	0: As mentioned before, pretty much everything in PvE is immune to stuns and movement-impairing effects. Stasis can be used on some adds, but the cooldown reduction is pretty much never necessary.
	Unremitting Force Leap grants Unremitting, granting immunity to movement-impairing effects and effects that push or pull you around for 4 seconds.	4: You’d be surprised how many things will knock you back after you leap to them. This utility completely negates these effects with the bonus of allowing you to avoid stuns if you can time it correctly.
	Focused Freedom Activating Combat Focus purges movement-impairing effects and increases your movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds.	4: I find myself taking this utility a lot. For Focus, this approximates Kinetic Acceleration for shadows and greatly improves your mobility and gap-closing ability.

Heroic:

	Ardent Advocate Force Leap enables your next Dispatch or Whirling Blade to be used against a target with any percentage of health. Lasts up to 15 seconds.	5: A Dispatch usage from Force Leap is integral to the Focus opener, so this utility is mandatory.
	Through Peace Reduces the cooldown of Focused Defense by 30 seconds.	3: Focused Defense is probably your most powerful defensive cooldown besides Saber Reflect and it can get you out of a lot of sticky situations. In fights with a lot of raidwide damage, the bit of extra healing will really help your healers.
	Preparation When you exit combat, the active cooldowns of Force Leap, Combat Focus, and Saber Throw are reduced by 100%.	0: It’s very rare that you’ll actually exit combat during a boss fight, so this utility does nothing the vast majority of the time.
	Whiplash Saber Throw immobilizes the target for 3 seconds.	0: Again, movement-impairing effects won’t affect most of what you’re fighting, but something you’ll want to take in PvP.
	True Harmony Focused Defense increases your movement speed by 50% and grants immunity to movement-impairing effects while active.	1: The only fight I can think of where you’d get usage from this utility is Underlurker. Otherwise, you shouldn’t be using Focused Defense for movement reasons.
	Peaceful Focus Enure removes all cleansable effects when activated.	2: There aren’t too many fights with cleanseabledebuffs, but when there are – such as Nefra and Dread Council – being able to cleanse yourself is vital.

Legendary:

	Cut Loose Blade Blitz can be used while immobilized, purges movement-impairing effects when activated, and deals 50% more damage. Additionally, the cooldown of Blade Blitz is reduced by 10 seconds.	3: Like with Focused Freedom, being able to break roots/immobilizes can be very helpful, and the reduced cooldown means you can more often use Blade Blitz for mobility. For Fights where Saber Reflect isn’t useful, this is a good utility to take.
	Persistent Chill Freezing Force pierces enemies with an aching chill, dealing elemental damage to all affected targets over 8 seconds. Additionally, Freezing Force grants Chilling Speed, increasing your movement speed by 35% for 8 seconds.	5: Because Blade Barrage takes up only one GCD, there is now an open spot in the rotation. Freezing Force with Persistent Chill is by far the highest damaging ability to fill that spot, and the movement speed boost is a nice bonus. To be honest, I dislike this utility because it reduces your flexibility, as your DPS won’t be very competitive without it.
	Jedi Warden Reduces the cooldowns of Force Push and Awe by 15 seconds. Additionally, reduces the cooldown of Guardian Leap by 5 seconds and reduces the threat and damage taken by an additional 10% each for the friendly target of Guardian Leap.	1: Force Push and Awe aren’t used that often in PvE, and if they are, the reduced cooldown won’t be needed. The extra damage reduction from Guardian Leap can be nice, but overall this utility isn’t very useful in PvE.
	Unyielding Justice Increases the range of Blade Storm to 30 meters, but Blade Storm deals reduced damage beyond 10 meters. Additionally, Force Push deals 20% more damage and grants Unyielding Justice, allowing your next Blade Storm to deal full damage regardless of the distance from the target.	1: If you find you’re having trouble gap closing, the additional range on Blade Storm could be helpful, but there are far better options.
	Daunting Presence Force Leap finishes the cooldown on Force Kick. In addition, Saber Reflect lasts 2 seconds longer, and if Soresu Form is being utilized, generates a high amount of threat on all engaged enemies within 30 meters when activated.	4: An extra 2 seconds of Saber Reflect equates to a lot of extra damage dealt in applicable fights. Just be careful about watching the duration and let your healers know, as you’ll both take a bit of extra damage and draw a lot of threat.
	Thwart Guardian Leap grants Thwart, increasing the damage dealt by your next melee ability by 20%. This effect lasts for 10 seconds.	2: In theory, this utility could be abused to give extra damage from Guardian Leap. In practice, you will almost always have better options.

For general purpose, my default set of utilities is:

Left: General Purpose Utilities, Right: AoE DPS Utilities

• Skillful:
• Battlefield Command
• Narrowed Focus
• Masterful:
• Guardianship
• Unremitting
• Focused Freedom
• Heroic:
• Ardent Advocate
• Legendary:
• Persistent Chill
• Daunting Presence

The only utilities I consider strictly mandatory are Guardianship and Persistent Chill, with Ardent Advocate being strongly recommended. Narrowed Focus, Focused Freedom, and Unremitting are the first ones I will sacrifice for others. For fights with lots of AoE and dealing with adds or trash mobs, I will swap in Trailblazer and Purifying Sweep. In fights with cleanseabledebuffs, I will use Peaceful Focus. Other utilities I take depend on the fight, and any utility with a rating of 2 or higher is one that you should consider if the situation calls for it.

Rotation

Now that you’re here, I hope you’ve at least skimmed the preceding sections so that you’re armed with the knowledge you need to understand what follows. To truly master a discipline and realize its full potential in an actual fight, you must understand how the rotation works. Thus, if you haven’t, I encourage you to go back and read through the abilities and utilities. Without further ado, here’s the rotation and the theory behind it.

Single Target:

Focus is a definite rotation, with an optimal sequence of abilities. The key buffs and procs in the Focus discipline are centered around each use of Focused Burst. It should always be used under the effect of both Singularity and Felling Blow, giving it both 15% increased damage and a supercrit. Furthermore, each use gives you a 6 second window of 5% increased damage dealt with Heightened Power. Thus, the primary objective of the discipline is to gain the maximum buff on each Focused Burst and then deal as much damage during the following Heightened Power window as possible.

The rotation for Focus is fairly short and spans only 13 GCDs with 2 Heightened Power windows in each cycle. Ability usage in each window is dependent upon resource generation and cooldowns. Once execute is reached, Dispatch is used in place of Riposte, which requires a bit of a reordering of the rotation due to extra focus consumption.

To summarize the rotation, the core ideas are:

• Buff every use of Focused Burst with both Felling Blow and Singularity
• Do as much damage as possible within the Heightened Power window
• Use Freezing Force, Riposte, Blade Storm, Sundering Strike, and Dispatch (in execute) as fillers
• Manage the cooldowns of all your core abilities with correct sequencing.

The last point is critical for rotational stability, as incorrect sequencing will leave you either resource starved or without an ability off cooldown to use besides Slash and Strike (both of which should never be used).

First, the opener. Use this sequence when entering combat or engaging a new targetif you have enough downtime for all your primary abilities to come off cooldown. The amount of downtime necessary ends up being approximately 10 seconds.Although Focused Burst has a 15 second cooldown, its cooldown is reduced by several rotational abilities and in practice you will never be waiting 15 seconds between uses.

Force Leap -> Combat Focus + Focused Burst -> Zealous Leap -> Force Exhaustion -> Concentrated Slice -> Dispatch -> Blade Barrage -> Freezing Force -> Focused Burst -> Zealous Leap -> Sundering Strike -> Concentrated Slice -> Blade Storm -> Freezing Force -> Combat Focus + Focused Burst -> rotation

Force Leap is used to generate focus and grants Felling Blow. Combat Focus generates the remainingfocus required for the first portion of the opener and grants Singularity. Ensure that you are using Combat Focus before Focused Burst. Force Exhaustion precedes Concentrated Slice because of Focused Vision. Zealous Leap and Dispatch are the hardest hitting abilities and are stacked into the Heightened Power window (which lasts for four GCDs). Freezing Force is timed such that the DoT ticks during the next Heightened Power. Note that the opener after Force Leap is identical to the execute phase rotation.

All four of the abilities following Focused Burst will occur within Heightened Power for the second window, so their order is chosen for rotational stability. Zealous leap must be used first for it to be off cooldown for the next use. Sundering Strike procs the two-piece set bonus and generates focus. Blade Storm does decent damage instantly, while the initial hit from Freezing Force is tiny. Again, remember to use Combat Focus before Focused Burst. At low alacrity, it may be useful to use the sequence

Focused Burst -> Zealous Leap -> Blade Storm -> Concentrated Slice -> Sundering Strike ->etc

After the second Focused Burst, instead of the sequence above because it secures blade storm during Heightened Power, which does more damage than sundering strike. This is because Blade Storm has a noticeable travel time.

Now, the standard rotation. This sequence is cycled after the opener until execute phase is reached or you are forced into downtime. It follows the same principles as the opener did, using Riposte as a filler instead of Dispatch.

(Combat Focus + Focused Burst from opener/previous rotation) -> Zealous Leap -> Force Exhaustion -> Concentrated Slice ->Blade Barrage ->Riposte -> Freezing Force -> Focused Burst -> Zealous Leap -> Concentrated Slice -> Sundering Strike -> Blade Storm -> Freezing Force -> Combat Focus + Focused Burst -> (repeat)

As before, Combat Focus and Zealous Leap from the previous cycle give a fully buffed Focused Burst. The hardest hitting abilities are again stacked into the heightened power window, with freezing force timed such that it ticks for the entire window. Again, use your discretion for the second window based upon your alacrity.

Finally, the execute phase. Here, Riposte is dropped from the rotation in favor of Dispatch. With a slight reordering of the second Focused Burst window, Dispatch can be added while maintaining rotational integrity, leading to a modest increase in DPS.

(Combat Focus + Focused Burst from opener/previous rotation) -> Zealous Leap -> Force Exhaustion -> Concentrated Slice -> Dispatch -> Blade Barrage -> Freezing Force -> Focused Burst -> Zealous Leap -> Sundering Strike -> Concentrated Slice -> Blade Storm -> Freezing Force -> Combat Focus + Focused Burst -> (repeat)

As stated earlier, this rotation and the opener are identical except for the lead-in. Here, dispatch unequivocally does more damage than Blade Barrage, so it gets priority in the heightened power window.

Multiple Targets:

The AoE rotation for Focus depends upon whether you’re against a boss + adds or just adds. Against a boss, it’s best to maintain a stable rotation, where’s against adds it’s best to sell out for AoE damage.

For fighting a boss plus some adds, simply replace each Focused Burst with Force Sweep and each Riposte with Cyclone Slash. Since Force Sweep also is buffed by Felling Blow and Singularity and provides a Heightened Power window, it can be seamlessly substituted for Focused Burst to sacrifice a bit of single target damage for AoE damage. Similarly, Cyclone Slash provides the same effects as riposte and costs the same amount of focus. Making these substitutions gives a good amount of AoE damage while still allowing you to maintain a stable single target rotation.

Against just adds when no target will live long enough to justify a single target rotation, you should sell out for AoE damage, and do something like

(Saber Throw if Zealous Leaping) -> Force Leap/Zealous Leap -> Combat Focus + Force Sweep -> Freezing Force -> Cyclone Slash x3-4 -> Sundering Strike -> Zealous Leap -> Force Sweep -> Freezing Force -> Cyclone Slash x3-4 ->etc

Basically alternating between Combat Focus and Sundering Strike to generate Focus for each series of Cyclone Slashes. Optionally substitute Force Exhaustion for a Cyclone Slash after the second Force Sweep to grant Singularity. This rotation is not sustainable long term due to the focus usage of Cyclone Slash unless taking a steady stream of damage. To sustain long-term, use Saber Throw/Strike instead of 1-2 Cyclone Slashes in the cycle without Combat Focus.

Parse

Parsing should never be your end goal, but it is a useful tool for ensuring you are executing the rotation correctly. Here is an example parse that I submitted to Parsely: http://parsely.io/parser/view/234096/4

Focused Burst will be the largest portion of your damage done, as it supercrits and has a high base damage. Concentrated Slice has a high base damage and is thus another major contributor to your damage done. Next comes Freezing Force, which does more damage per activation than any ability besides Focused Burst and Concentrated Slice. Zealous leap does a decent amount of damage per activation. These four abilities are all used twice per rotation cycle, and will thus contribute the vast majority of your damage done. Dispatch contributes a noticeable share despite only being used a handful of times.

In analyzing a Parse, make sure to note the following things:

• Number of Force Sweeps + Focused Bursts = Number of Zealous Leaps + Force Leaps = Number of Force Exhaustions + Number of Combat Focuses (in this Parse I ended in the middle of a cycle so 1 Focused Burst is missing)
• Every Force Sweep and Focused Burst is a critical hit
• Actions per minute (APM) of ~47 (slightly under is fine)
• No uses of Slash or Strike

Playing Guardian in PvE

Guardian is rarely mentioned as a top class for any content, and is in fact sometimes seen as a cheese class due to Saber Reflect and the fact that you can in general get away without knowing a rotation and survive more punishment than most classes. This sells the class short. It’s true that there aren’t as many ways for you to help a group, as you have no raid buff, no heals, and no effects you can apply to multiple allies. Even Guard is not particularly useful in PvE content, since tanks will often be able to handle this role. However, I think that perception is more due to the lack of players who are truly versed in the class than lack of class utility.

As a melee class, you must always ensure that you are close enough to a target to do damage unless mechanics prevent it. Naturally, this means you must be able to DPS while moving. Rarely will you be able to simply stand next to a target and parse on it. A player adept at melee DPS will be able to maintain their rotation while constantly on the move – save for any casts/channels – and Guardians have none of them so there is no reason to ever need to stop moving. Ensuring your keybinds are such that you can use abilities while also hitting your movement keys is essential. I personally recommend picking up a gaming mouse and using its programmable keys and the keyboard for your abilities, as it allows you to have a large number of different inputs at your disposal. 

Being mobile leads to a more important point in that you want to be doing something during every GCD possible. Any time you spend not doing damage to a boss or executing a mechanic or (rarely) assisting a group member about to die by guarding them/Guardian leaping, you are as valuable as a monkey at the keyboard, as in, not valuable at all. Only when there is programmed downtime should you find yourself with nothing to do, and even then, there is almost always something you can do.

As one more point about being melee, I want to emphasize that you must be flexible in your positioning, movement, and most importantly what you are doing at each moment. Do not simply tunnel focus a boss and ignore everything going on around you to dish out damage. Remember, your DPS while executing mechanics may be low, but your DPS if you die or the group wipes due to you missing a mechanic is ZERO. Your role is to do as much damage as possible within the allotted time without sacrificing group health or execution of mechanics. You will naturally be taking more damage than ranged players in almost every fight. Any damage you can avoid is as good as damage healed (better even because it doesn’t cost your healers resources), so do so at any opportunity. Finally, pay attention, listen, and communicate with group members. You are a team, not competitors, and you should be working together to achieve whatever goals have been set out.

For Focus,mobility and positioning should never be a problem. Only 3 of your abilities are strictly melee, the rest of them having 10 meter range (or 8 meters for Freezing Force), so you have considerable leeway for your positioning. Built into your rotation are times when you can sit almost at range, a gap closer, and a personal 35% speed boost. As if that wasn’t enough, Zealous Leap breaks roots and the Freezing Force speed boost nullifies most slows. With practice, you can joust between melee and 10 meter range as your rotation allows and run circles around your target while still executing the rotation. PvP is great for training mobility since players move much more than bosses, and is a great way to increase your flexibility. Another good way would be to try parsing while constantly moving. Taking critical hits into account, your goal should be to keep your DPS within about 500 of your stationary parse.

On target swapping, being able to smoothly transition between targets while executing mechanics is a very important aspect of DPSing. Doing so smoothly takes a lot of practiceand constitutes much of the difficulty in PvE content (and a large portion of it in PvP). Remember to ensure that a target is completely dead before moving to the next one. As a Guardian, your primary means of target swapping will involve using a gap closer. Because the Focus rotation has so many moving parts, target swapping must be done carefully, as jumping to a new target at the wrong spot in the rotation will cause it to breakdown. There is very little room to allow cooldowns to realign or add extra fillers – if you break the rotation, you need to step out and start over.

Sometimes, you will be afforded enough time for your abilities to come off cooldown for the opener, in which case do that. Remember to go into the opener with at least 6 focus if you are unable to use Combat Focus, as you can Saber Throw to cap focus generation. If you can use Combat Focus, you will only need 3 focus. If the target swap is fast, ideally, you will either be able to Force Leap in place of Zealous Leap (or even Zealous Leap) or use a 10 meter range ability. Freezing Force is also a decent choice because of the speed boost it grants and its 8 meter range. In PvE, if the target is far away, insert a Force Leap and then carry on from where you left off, i.e.

->Blade Barrage ->Force Leap -> Riposte ->

Rather than using a ranged ability (besides Saber Throw) to cover the distance, as it will almost always result in rotational misalignment. If you are unable to do any of these things, Saber Throw to put in some damage. If that is on cooldown, it can even be better to just run to a new target and pick up the rotation, as 3 seconds of downtime is better than wrecking your rotation.

Finally, a few thoughts on Guardian group utility. The ways in which Guardians can help a group are better hidden than for most classes and require good situational awareness and class knowledge to pull off effectively. The first thing everyone thinks about with Guardians is Saber Reflect and, indeed, it is an immensely useful ability. You can ignore many mechanics, resist damage to let your healers get out in front of a damage curve, and boost your damage output far beyond what is normally possible. Outside of bosses, it can be used to make AI adds basically kill themselves and works great in PvP against all ranged classes (melee classes tend to have attacks that do weapon damage, but you can reflect most of the hardest hitting abilities from every class, so it’s still useful). See for a full index of where and when to use Saber Reflect in operations bosses.

Another major utility Guardians provide is in the form of Guardianship. Now wait, you say, isn’t that only useful for tanks? Why would I ever need to taunt? Well in DPS spec, your Challenging Call acts as a threat drop and should be used basically on cooldown to help your tanks maintain aggro. But with the Guardianship utility, you give the entire group a bit of shielding for a short time. In fights where there is a lot of raidwide damage, you can effectively do 100-200k heals by preventing damage to the group. For fights with damage spikes, a well-timed use of Guardianship can be the difference between a group member dying and surviving. The value of this utility in PvE cannot be overstated. There is an old bug that makes absorb shields overwrite each other that I have never run into but has been reported previously. If you are wary, you can always test it yourself in-game to see if Guardianship overwrites other absorb shield. On the note of taunts, yes, there are even times to use them in PvE. Obviously, you are a great candidate to take over for a dead tank with your DCDs and heavy armor. But Taunt is useful for rounding up adds or getting them off healers, and in certain fights it can be combined with reflect. (In PvP, you should be taunting on cooldown. Less damage done to your team is always better!)

Finally, Guardian Leap and Guard provide a damage reduction to the affected ally. If you see someone taking a lot of damage suddenly, Guardian Leap to them and then pop your Guard (if they aren’t already guarded). This will give the healers precious time to keep them alive. Just don’t do it to a tank because it reduces their threat, and they should be taking that damage anyway (though in PvP, Guardian Leaping to a tank has no downsides and should be done whenever the situation calls for it).

Conclusion

Focus Guardian is a fun discipline to play, and I hope I’ve given you the knowledge you need to realize it’s potential. If you’ve made it here, I hope you’ve learned something that will help you become a better player. If you have any questions or comments, you can leave them here or find me in game on The Shadowlands server. I will respond as promptly as I can.

About the Author

I’m Skyesora, or "Schwarz" to most of my friends. I started playing in February 2016 and didn’t start raiding until late July 2016, so I don’t have the long list of achievements that a lot of other guide writers have, but I had cleared all 8-man hard mode content pre-5.0 except for Revan, Master and Blaster, Coratanni, and Colossal Monolith, and had begun working on EC nightmare mode and Master and Blaster hard mode when 5.0 dropped. I play all content, but progression raiding is my bread and butter. I am the raid leader for the guild Council of Light on the Republic side of The Shadowlands server. I started on a sage healer (who is named Schwarzschilda, so that’s where my name comes from) but expanded to learn almost every spec in the game, and have mained Guardian DPS since I began raiding. As of the time of writing, I have achieved the highest Parse on Parsely for both Guardian DPS Disciplines post-5.0 (Vigilance: http://parsely.io/parser/view/234123/0, Focus: http://parsely.io/parser/view/234096/4) and I welcome all challengers.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all my guild mates, fellow raiders, and all the various people I’ve played with for putting up with me for the past year, and without whom I would not have cleared all the content I have.

In particular, thank you to:

• Our main tank, Tsouyen, for keeping aggrooff me and in general being on the wrong end of a lot of punishment and teasing
• Our ridiculously OP healer, DBlock, for healing me even when I purposely walk into AoE damage and keeping us alive through long odds in both PvE and PvP

And thank you all for reading and editing this guide:

• Akitashii, the guy who’s always lurking in the Shadows
• Hayete, the best pocket Combat Sentinel
• Isaac Bell, the awesome and chill Gunslinger/Scoundrel/Sage
• Salaci, the Super Salty Sage DPS
• Tsouyen, yet again

Remember it’s always Tsou’s fault :).

The ability/utility icons are from Dulfy’s SWTOR Disciplines Calculator, and the descriptions are pulled from Jedipedia and Dulfy’s website.

Thank you to Dulfy for hosting this guide, and thank you for reading.