Focus Guardian

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%.

A mandatory utility for DPS Guardian disciplines due to the armor debuff but should never be taken outside of PVP for Guardian tanks.

Force Leap grants Unremitting, granting immunity to movement impairing effects and effects that push or pull you around for 4 seconds.

A highly situational utility that is more useful in PVP, there are a very few select circumstances where it is useful in PVE. The most notable example is Master & Blaster Veteran Mode in the Ravagers operation, where taking Unremitting and Battlefield Command can enable solo tanking Blaster and ignoring its knockback attack via this utility.

For Vigilance and Focus, all area effect damage is reduced by 60% for 15 seconds after Challenging Call is activated. For Defense, all damage is reduced by 30% when stunned.

This utility is mandatory for Vigilance or Focus players as it makes your threat drop an incredibly powerful AoE defensive cooldown. For Defense tanks, it is highly situational for only fights with significant stun potential (e.g., Pirate Captains in Ravagers operation).

Enure removes all cleansable effects when activated.

A situational but frequently useful utility, take whenever having a self-cleanse is a key mechanic. Note that this is usually only the case with very hard hitting DoTs or status effects, or one-shot mechanics (e.g., Death Mark in Veteran Mode Dread Council). Otherwise, I would usually not take this utility in lieu of Through Peace (Focused Defense can be used to heal to full via a DoT).

Reduces the cooldown of Focused Defense by 30 seconds.

Focused Defense is a very powerful self heal and having a 25% shorter cooldown will frequently mean you can get 3 uses per fight instead of 2. I nearly always take this utility.

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.

I find this utility helpful to add more DPS via more frequent use of your execute ability. That said, it only really adds significant value in fights where you will be able to periodically leap from boss to adds, where there are multiple bosses, or where bosses have transition or movement phases. This encompasses the majority of fights and so I find it useful. In fights where there is essentially no movement and no use of Force Leap outside of the initial pull, I may not take this utility and take Unyielding Justice to get a periodic use of Force Push as a more powerful filler.

Force Leap finishes the cooldown on Force Kick. Also, Saber Reflect lasts 2 seconds longer and for tanks generates high AoE threat.

I nearly always take to improve the utility of Saber Reflect. The cooldown reset on interrupt is also highly useful for a few specific fights like Izax. On Izax Phase 3 (interrupt phase), two Guardians alone can essentially handle all the interrupts due to being to take 3 straight interrupts (Force Kick interrupt -> (dance out of melee range) -> Force Leap interrupt -> Force Kick interrupt).

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.

This utility’s boost to Force Push makes it a higher priority filler and can increase overall DPS slightly. That said, I usually do not take this utility on any fight where I can use Saber Reflect to boost my DPS and/or mitigate sizable damage.

Using Force Leap or Zealous Leap makes your next Blade Storm deal 5% more damage and generate 1 Focus rather than consuming 4 Focus.

Zealous Leap and Blade Storm have the same cooldown, so it becomes important to ensure Zealous Leap is always utilized before Blade Storm to deal more damage and save Focus.

Strike, Sundering Strike, Slash, Cyclone Slash, Riposte, Blade Storm, Dispatch, and Concentrated Slice reduce cooldowns of Force Sweep, Focused Burst and Zealous Leap by 1 second and Combat Focus by 2 seconds.

This passive primarily explains why Focus can become very confusing if you don’t follow a set rotation. Due to the varying cooldowns of abilities based on this utility, if you don’t follow a specific rotation then having a really good understanding of ability usage becomes critical to follow a priority system.

Force Leap and Zealous Leap make your next Force Sweep or Focused Burst used within 20 seconds an automatic critical hit.

This passive ensures you should use Zealous Leap on cooldown so that each Focused Burst or Force Sweep is an automatic crit. These abilities (along with Blade Storm) have an identical cooldown which facilitates this usage.

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.

Focused Burst is your second highest damage ability in base damage and should regularly (1) be an auto-crit from Felling Blow; and (2) consume no Focus due to Singularity, and as such is arguably your most powerful ability when considering this passive. As such, it is the beginning of your burst and should be followed by your next 4 biggest hitting abilities.

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 6 additional Focus over 6 seconds when used.

This passive buffs Combat Focus and enables it to be a rotational off-GCD ability. Due to the buff to Force Sweep or Focused Burst, it also requires spreading out usage of Combat Focus and Force Exhaustion so that each buff is used. As such, Combat Focus is typically part of the beginning of each rotation and Force Exhaustion used in the middle, each used the GCD before Focused Burst comes off CD.

Concentrated Slice enables Riposte and beats down its target for 45 seconds. Beat Down targets take 5% more damage from melee attacks.

This passive applies Focus debuff to targets and should generally be applied as soon as possible in the opener or when switching targets.

Force Exhaustion grants Focused Vision, making your next Zealous Leap or Concentrated Slice consume no Focus.

This passive establishes that you should be using Force Exhaustion on cooldown and that following it Concentrated Slice (5 Focus) should take priority over Zealous Leap (2 Focus) due to the buff removing the Focus cost.

Consumes all ability charges and applies Force Clarity stacks to you. Each stack increases your next direct single target melee attack by 25% and is consumed whenever you deal damage with these attacks. Recharges 1 ability charge every 30 seconds.

A new offensive cooldown, it can be used in the opener to buff you heaviest hitting ability for +100% damage or used every ~30 seconds to buff an ability damage +25%

Deals high kinetic damage. Costs 3 Focus and has a 12s cooldown before alacrity.

Focused Burst is buffed via the Singularity passive by Combat Focus or Force Exhaustion to deal 15% more damage and be free. It is also buffed via the Felling Blow passive by Zealous Leap to be an automatic critical hit. Lastly it also buffs all other ability damage by 5% via the Heightened Power passive ability. Due to the Heightened Power buff, it always begins each rotation block to ensure Concentrated Slice and Zealous Leap are buffed.

Hits the target and up to 8 enemies within 5m for moderate kinetic damage. Stuns weak and standard enemies for 2 seconds. Costs 3 Focus and has a 12s cooldown before alacrity.

An AoE ability that is buffed by all the same passives as Focused Burst, so can be substituted for it in any AoE situations.

Deals high weapon damage. Costs 5 Focus and has a 9s cooldown before alacrity.

The highest base damage ability for Focus, is it used after Focused Burst to ensure it is always buffed via the Heightened Power passive.

Leaps to a target and deals high weapon damage and immobilizes the target. Can be used while immobilized. Costs 2 Focus and has a 12s cooldown before alacrity.

Zealous Leap procs Felling Blow which makes the next Focused Burst an automatic critical hit, thus it should be used rotationally.

Progressively slows the target from 50% to 5% movement over 3 seconds and deals low kinetic damage each second. At the end of the duration, the target takes additional moderate kinetic damage. Costs 3 Focus and has a 18s cooldown before alacrity.

This ability does not deal a huge amount of damage on its own but is critical to supporting the rotation via the Focused Vision passive that makes the next Zealous Leap or Concentrated Slice free. It also procs Singularity just as Combat Focus. Thus each rotation block should be preceded by EITHER Combat Focus or Force Exhaustion, or else the energy management of the rotation will fall apart.

Generates 6 Focus. Off-GCD ability. 45 second cooldown.

Combat Focus is hugely buffed for Focus due to the Singularity passive, which causes it to increase the damage of the next Focused Burst by 15% and make it free, and also regenerates 6 additional energy over 6 seconds. This makes the ability key to the rotation. Due to its cooldown, it can be used to buff every other Focused Burst and precedes every other rotation block.

Deals moderate kinetic damage. 10m range. Costs 4 Focus and has a 12s cooldown before alacrity.

High damage ability that should be used on cooldown. It is buffed by Zealous Leap to deal slightly more damage and generate energy instead of using it.