Trooper Vanguard vs Jedi Guardian

So typically in MMO's, I am usually drawn to the heavy armor classes.  I primarily played a Resto Shaman in my WoW days, and while it's not really a heavy armor class, the fact that they could use a shield helped offset that.  I did also play as a Ret Paladin for some time, mainly to do 2's with my usual PvP partner as Rogue and Ret.  So that being said, I've been playing the Jedi Guardian, Trooper Commando and Vanguard for a while now trying to decide what to play post release.


I almost immediately ruled out the Commando after playing with the talent trees upon hitting level 10 in the beta.  I didn't want to play a primary healer in this game so I mainly was looking at the Gunnery and Assault trees.  As I said previously, I don't like the mobility cooldowns of the Assault tree and the Commando is actually worse since it does not have a reliable on demand snare in the tree unlike the Vanguard.  Gunnery looked to play too much like a turret Elemental Shaman and I really didn't enjoy that playstyle in WoW so I was left looking at the Guardian and the Vanguard.

Here is where I'm going to differ from popular opinion.  I believe that once things settle down in the max level game, the Guardian is going to be just as competitive as the Vanguard in PvP.  I generally only care about small scale PvP and not too much for the big standoffs that happen(to use a WoW example, I didn't care that Hunters used to dominate Alterac Valley kills and damage in vanilla WoW).  I prefer to do arena style PvP with teammates I regularly play with.  That said though, Guardians are already the cream of the crop in Huttball running with Force Leap, Guardian Leap and Unremitting.  I'm sure they feel weak in unorganized Warzone PvP due to them being a melee class and also because their skills and talents come very late in the game.

So let's talk Vanguard vs Guardian in a PvP setting (let's just assume 2v2 or 3v3 fights).

• Peels:  Both classes provide a good amount of peeling ability.  In regards to a hard shutdown peel Vanguards get access to two baseline stuns in the form of Cryo Grenade and Neural Surge.  Guardians can talent into Hilt Strike, Force Clap and Stasis Mastery.  They also have a baseline Force Push which is kind of matched by Harpoon, though I would have to give the edge Force Push since it has the knockdown over the talented Harpoon root.  Vanguards and Guardians do both have access to charge type abilities that interrupt and root, though Vanguards have to talent for it and Guardians get to upgrade it with Force Clap and even Unremitting if they are willing to give up Guardian Strike.  The Jedi seem to have the edge on this one.
• CC / Control:  Obviously a lot of the peels listed above can also be used for offtarget CC.  This is usually important when trying to burn someone down while CC'ing a healer.  Vanguard probably has the advantage with healer shutdown here since Harpoon is good to interrupt a heal and then Neural Surge for shutdown of the DPS target and healer all still leaving them in range for a Riot Strike for more healer lockdown.  The Jedi Guardian does have Awe, but no way of forcing a max range healer to be hit with that without blowing something like Force Leap.  Movement control though, definitely belongs to the Jedi Guardian.  This is definitely a strong point with their talented no cooldown and no cost AE snare.  This will definitely be a big selling point for objective based PvP where a Guardian and a single healer can massively slow down enemies at chokepoints on the map.  This is kind of a toss up.
• Mobility:  Both classes definitely have a lot of movement options.  Tactics Vanguards with smart use of Hold the Line definitely allows for some creative uses, especially for baiting high cooldown CC's.  Storm with it's talented run speed bonus can also be very strong.  I don't think anything can beat the mobility of a Guardian specced deep in the tanking tree and picking up Unremitting though.  That combined with their AE snare gives them the edge here.  Of course, mobility and uptime mean nothing without...
• Meaningful Damage Output:  I don't consider damage charts meaningful since splash damage that has no chance of killing anything doesn't mean anything, unless of course you are preventing an objective cap.  Unfortunately I will have to take the copout on this one as it remains to be seen how the game works out at high level with top quality gear.

So, after all this talk, why did I choose the Vanguard?  I'll go into that tomorrow in part 2 of my specs post! =)