In Star Wars: The Old Republic, Vigilance is pretty average for sustained, pure single-target DPS. While it’s not one of the strongest specs, it doesn’t have a significant downside either. Vigilance can burst better than in the past thanks to Combat Focus’s expanded capabilities and specific ability tree buffs, although it still doesn’t match the actual burst DPS specs.
The biggest advantage of Vigilance Guardian so far is that its AoE damage potential is very high. The only other discipline in the game that can compete is Hatred Assassin/Serenity Shadow. It’s so powerful that it’s easy to get other players in the group to ignore AoE entirely and focus their ability on tree buffs on increasing single-target DPS. Vigilance Guardian can often boost their single-target DPS considerably when multiple targets are present, due to how their various AoE buffs work.
In terms of survivability, the DPS Guardian is technically in a worse position than 6.0, although the nerf to survivability doesn’t affect their performance in PvE content at all. Sabre Reflect is only useful for certain attacks in certain battles, and you can always use the cheese ability when needed.
Also, almost all disciplines suffered some kind of survivability nerf in 6.0, and in PvE Vigilance actually took less damage than many other disciplines. Compared to other disciplines, they’re still a bit confusing as they activate 60% AoE RDT (damage taken) instead of the constant 30% AoE RDT, but their excess DCD should still allow them to survive well done.
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