7.8 Defense / Immortal SWTOR Guides

Using guard effectively will help keep the boss's threat on you and your teammates alive.  In Flash points, we typically guard the healer to keep them safe from mobs.  In operations, we give it to the top DPS player.  You should get a sense of who is the strongest dps player of your group and guard them.  They take reduced damage and will build less threat regardless of how close they are to you.  You can help the healers as well.  Consider swapping your guard to a player that is taking damage/low on health.

With the retaliator package (legendary implant) in some fights you can use Riposte in 80% of all GCDs, it can be used with other abilities, so just keep spamming the button as it lights up.  Sometimes it gets a bit tricky to keep hitting this ability and activating your other sequences, work to keep it somewhere your fingers can reach easy for a huge DPS/Threat increase.  It gets notable mention as its own sequence, as some fights (or phases) it will be available to spam and others it will not.  When Riposte lights up and if you enter a period where you can spam it as the Retaliator Sequence, have fun!  (Notable fight is tanking Tuchuk in Scum and Villainy), I have used riposte over 200 times in some pulls.

Only useable sub 30% or if proc'd with the skill point to use it after a force leap.  If it lights up, use it at a higher priority vs the other junk fillers.  I tend to stay focused on my other abilities that give me bonus defensive stats over using this ability.  As such, if you do not get to use it in its proc'd window, no big deal.

When you have enough force and can spam this to fill the gap to do so, it deals the highest damage/threat next to dispatch, which can only be used if it has proc'd, or you are sub 30% boss HP.

Yes, our basic attack, I hate it, but sometimes we will run out of energy and just need to smash it a few times to get caught back up.  Do Slash again as soon as you have enough force to.

If this is up, and you need to focus, use this over a strike.

Last for 12", this ability gives us a 50% increased chance to dodge Melee/Ranged damage and a 25% Damage reduction to Force/Tech attacks.  It is on a 2:30 minute cooldown.  With the Grit Teeth Tactical, saber ward will refresh much faster than the base cool down.  Use it frequently, it is a very strong defensive that will level out the damage you are taking against very strong boss attacks.

Warding Call is a unique defensive we gain as the defense spec.  It does not modify our stats, rather it just reduces damage taken by 40% for 10 seconds.  I do not find that this one protects me as well as saber ward, so I tend to use it to smooth out moderate damage phases and never rely on it to save my life.  It has a long cool down (2:30) meaning in most fights, you will have this to use only once, maybe twice in a fight.

With the Critical Defense Passive at level 43 this focus gaining ability becomes a 10% Damage Reduction for 10".  Handy for fights that need a little bit extra DR.  This also purges movement impairing effects.

As far as defensives go, this one does nothing for you.  It can, however, be used to help save a teammate.  NEVER use this on an active tank, as it will reduce the threat of the target of your leap.  Making the tank loose threat can wipe your team.  I have found this ability uniquely helpful in Izax (induction cascade).  I can quickly leap to the player getting pounded by induction, then run out before I take any damage or spread it (hard mode).  There are a ton of other uses, but you must weigh in using a GCD to help the healers or continue DPS to push the fight along.  25% DR to the target.

Where we usually guard the player with top threat, it's not always the best option for a guardian.  Every time our guarded player is attacked, our movement speed is increased by 30% for 6".  I usually try to guard whoever is taking the most damage.

Enure is a temporary self-heal.  The Self-heal is commonly referred to as "fake health".  You get an increase of 30% HP for 20".  Meaning, if you are already at 100% you can in fact push your health to 130%.  This can come in handy for a fight that does percentage-based HP damage (tyth rage overload).

With the passive at level 64, second wind, your CC breaker can be used as a self-heal, giving you 10% of your max health back as well as lowering the CD of your CC Breaker.  Not useful for too many fights, as you need to be able to be stunned or have your movement impaired to use it, but it has its place.  

This one can make us seemingly immortal.  First off, it has 0 defensive utility, it will NOT reduce the damage you take.  This ability grants you 12 charges (and you must be below 70% HP to use it).  You have 15", during which time if/when you take damage a charge is consumed, and you are healed for about 25k HP per charge.  This means that if you are taking a low amount of damage, you can effectively heal up for ~ 300k HP in 15 seconds, a true lifesaver.  But if you are standing in something that is dealing damage to you at a rate of 50k/second, you are going to DIE!  You do not become invincible when using this.  I have heard so many guardians say "I was using focused defenses, how did it kill me through that".  Read your tool tips people ;)

Short Cooldown (1 minute), for 5 seconds you reflect all single target ranged, force and tech attacks back to the attacker.  (Note NOT melee).  This means you take 0 damage (unless it's melee or AoE), and you reflect boss or add damage back to them.  Can be VERY powerful, and what the game considers single target can be a bit off from what one might think.  The spires on EC tanks for example are Single Target.  When I am new to a fight, I typically just step in whatever stupid I can find to see if reflect works.  This is typically my default choice.

This movement ability dashes you forward 20 meters, damaging enemies in your path.  It can be used as a defensive cool down for its 100% defense chance while blitzing forward.  Blade blitz can help you ignore some very high damaging attacks like DOOM in dread guards, or the titan 6 launch blast wave.  There's a ton of uses.  Like with saber reflect, I tend to try it out against different attacks to see where it can be used best.  Mastering the forward role takes some practice, especially if cliffs are close by.  35" cool down.  If saber reflect does nothing for me in a fight, this is my second choice.

We first think of Awe for its AOE Stun ability against weak targets.  Against boss's though, it's just as powerful as it debuffs the boss with a 15% reduction to its melee and ranged attacks for 10".  Also, on a short cool down (1 minute) it can effectively give your entire team a 15% defense chance.  Helpful for phases of team wide damage and can be useful against add heavy fights where the adds can be stunned and reducing their damage will help (corruptor zero).  It's a great ability, but Blade Blitz and Saber Reflect often trump it.  As such, I only take it in fights where I cannot reflect and have no need to use blade blitz for movement.

Your Taunt should be used when you need to multiply your threat ahead of the DPS.  It's situational and can happen at different times depending on DPS composition/Experience Level.  As a Novice Tank, Taunt early into a fight.  As you get a better feel for the role, try delaying your Taunt after Several ability activations/channels to max your threat multiplication.

I call this an AoE taunt as it works same as "taunt" but effects all targets w/n 15 m of you.  A common Strategy for single target fights is to "taunt" use a few abilities "challenging call" use a few abilities and then "taunt" Again as a "Triple Taunt".  Sure Fire way to be the top threat