I so far have not been having too much difficulty with single group heroic mobs. I have to agree with everyone that once I loose agro I generally cannot retrieve it until they die. I do like the instant cast of the protection line of spells and have gotten into the habit of having those with in easy key press. If I loose agro my group mate knows that they are suppose to hide behind me (keeps the mob facing me while allowing me to maintain my htl and attempt to pull agro while intercepting some of their damage, even though all but a few times they hold agro until the end) With a sudden decrease in my avoidance, pre was at ~70% self buffed with post being 34% self buffed I am getting hit by everything for a significant amount more damage then before. My Fabled tower shield went from a 15% chance to block to a 10% chance to block as well as loosing over 100 AC. It’s now no different then the Fable Kite shield and I am wondering why I am carrying around a door (its cool factor was always -10) There is hardly any difference between guardians and pally’s in their mitigation both have a 10% chance to block, same armor class and similar taunts. One concern is given the small difference in HP vs. the pally. Will guardians even be asked to join raids when a pally can easily perform the same function plus their current line of heals, buffs, and combat rez’s along with their larger power pool means they don’t have to worry as much about running out of power during long epic fights? Some things to think about when playing your guardian is that your gear matters greatly in your capabilities to full fill the warrior role in your group. Given that mitigation caps out at 80% of total physical damage, once that cap is reached extra AC is not going to have any effect. In solo and small groups, Str will be a needed status modifier as your DPS is a significant part of the total group’s dps. In full groups a balance between Agi and Str matters in less you’re going up against lots of spell casters then Wiz takes priority. In raids your accessories should be maximized for the epics spell type with emphasis given to Wiz with secondary consideration give to agi and sta. Str is a non factor as it only increases your damage which will only play a small part in your taunting ability (some epic mobs I have found while being the MT I could not hit because I was to close). Before DOF I did not have to worry about my AC as much as I was concerned about resistances as my high agility meant I hardly got hit by the mobs crushing blows. Now with such low agi, mitigation becomes a significant part to reducing your heal requirements.
I've played my guardian quite a bit since DoF, both as main tank and not. I have to say that (besides an unexplained aggro problem I'm having) I am not noticing much of a difference in regular grouping. Tanking: I still have to taunt every friggin time they come up. I have a couple random DPS abilities to keep entertained, and that one big hit (before Retaliate, now Blast) to keep me feeling good about myself as a "fighter". The new "Hold the Line" line was a little akward to get re-adjusted to, but that's pretty much the only problem I had. Also a good mention would be one of our interception buffs that also decreases hate gain by a large amount! This thrown on a trigger happy groupy could really add a bit of control to the your hate gain. Not Tanking: IMPROVED IMO! You can't expect to always be the main tank. Sometimes, somebody is just better equipped to do the job, get over it. When that happens, what good are you? Before, I would throw my damage interception buffs on em, and tap the monsters with my sword. While the real dps hacked away at em. Now, we have more of a choice, as Berserkers did already. Now that most of our protective buffs are Until Canceled, we can just throw em on, switch on offensive, and pretend to be dps. All the while still not as good as the real guys, between our damage and protective powers, we're actually contributing quite a bit. With emergency group protects, and taunts of our own to take over when times get rough. (During any fight, taunt loosely, and expect the other tank to taunt as normal, or take over!) And once again, our hate gain reduction buff on those backstabby scouts, pyromaniacal mages, and oh-so-religious priests who can't contain thier prayers. Overall, I think we Guardians are a little more organized. I would be happy with a mitigation boost! Although I don't think I need it. I would kill for some better taunting power, it's a bit annoying to use my taunting stance, then hit all of my 4 standard taunting abilities (and group buff), immediately, every time they come up, and still end up losing my all of my aggro and power.
51 guard in fabled and ebon, adept 3's for entire spell line I currently use. WIth a open mind coming in to the new changes, thIs is my take on the changes. Spell lines- we took a big hit here IMO anchor- range nerfed, other spell only have a chance to land their former selves, and some, the added effect removed, now merely DMG AC HP- Taken down a bit here, with the reduction in our hp the least they could have done is leave our mitigation alone. Mobs in DOF stunning more, what a crock this was, wouldnt you expect guards above else to resist stunns, maybe SOE is scared w/ our uber DPS we might kill the mob to quick New armor- Big disappointment is the new player made cobalt armor 54 armorer here the new stuff is barley better than ebon, the saves are weak, the mitgiation is only nice upgrade. lets hope the fabled kicks but. Dps - was a joke before / and still is And the ONE thing they didnt change that needed changing was TUANTS They left our argo holding abilities alone, yet increased argo generation by every other class. /cheers SOE
Alot of the problems I had stemmed from being sub-30. Sub thirty is rough without offensive/defensive stances. You have one stance to get you through 15 levels, and it's all but useless towards the end. That being said, now that I have it and my new HTL (29) spell, it's been easier. Before that agro was very hard to maintain. I still think we're taking way to much damage, and that some spells that are necessary for the guardian class come to late pre-30, such as the stances and HTL line, and maybe should be given at 22-23....or if they are going to stick with the 1 at 15, then upgrade it at 20 to something that will at least last until 30.
The current line of Guardian taunts and taunting abilities is insufficient. Example: We raided Magolemus last night. I was MT, lvl 50 Guardian. Only class of a higher level than me on the raid was a 51 Bruiser (thanx Deslok ) I have: Master 2 - Madenning Defense (n% chance to proc a taunt when the mob hits me) Adept 3 - Protect, Deafen (direct taunts) Adept 1 - everything else Had Maddening Defense on from the beginning. Used taunts, Vengeful Strike and Taunting Assault as they bacame available. Lost aggro 4 times to the Bruiser. Bruiser would FD to allow me to regain aggro. Lost aggro to a Conjuror pet until the Conjuror died. Lost aggro to a Wizard, regained it with Rescue. Nobody on the raid was over nuking, over attacking etc. In fact, a couple of folks responded that they had been taking it easy. Even in a normal exp group, i find I HAVE to use Maddening Defense to maintain aggro. IMHO, they need to up the hate value of all of our taunt abilities.
I think the answer to the plable but not useful guardian is to give them some kind of resistance buffs and let them cast stun spells faster. that would bring them up to par with other tank classes, especialy since we are the only fighter class that has no heal ability.
So far I've got mixed feelings about the changes. The HTL upgrade is awesome. I used this all the time in its grey Adept III form before, and well, its was ok. my biggest question is, why did they take away all the added effects of my taunts? I mean, [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]? now all i have are some mediocre attack skills with no added abilities in them, and a bunch of different taunts that are pretty much the same thing. There is no utility in them. Just wail on all of them when playing MT to try and maintain aggro. Deafen is the only one i see that SAYS it interrupts, but im still not convinced it works to interrupt. I would be happier IF : SOE would remember that Guardians were billed as DEFENSIVE warriors and Monks would stop thinking they are tanks. Yes i said it. When in any fantasy genre have you seen this : Early one morning at King Arthur's castle an envoy from the east is chatting with King Arthur when someone runs in and says "OMG ! A Huge %*&^!$% dragon has just been seen outside the castle and is killing everyone. We are screwed! Everyone find a woman and start going at it. Game over man. GAME OVER !" The envoy turns and says " King Arthur, tell all the knights in shining armor to take off their armor, and use the martial arts abilities we have been working on to defeat this beast ! What do you mean im crazy? I heard its the best way to defeat them. Thats right, Take OFF the armor! Just avoid being hit and all will be good ! Whats that you say about what to do when you do get hit? I said A-V-O-I-D being hit you fool. You would rather not be hit at all right? RIGHT?" "Stop putting your armor back on, your the crazy with this "Armor" business. Dont waste your time. That heavy armor makes you too slow. Its best to just not get hit at all you silly knight. I know you think the shield and heavy armor would be good, but trust me, just AVOID BEING HIT ! Thats right. Thats the NEW Strategy, just Dodge the dragon and use martial arts to kill it. We must train all your troops to be ninjas and not to wear heavy armor, its just too slow. And swords. Pffft ! Those are for fools. Use sticks to kill it. Thats right CLUBS. Man you knights are slow on the uptake. Ok so everyone got it? Everyone have their clubs? SIGH. Baldric, take off your armor, what the hell are you thinking, it will only slow you down ! Now pick up your clubs. Right. All ready then? Ok, off you go....." My money is on the dragon. You have all heard of epic battles in fantasy being fought by Ninjas right? I mean, someone MUST have read or seen that somewhere for people to think that monks should be fantastic tanks able to endure epic battles with dragons, cyclops, Krakens, etc. If this is the scenario SOE is headed for, they need to send a whole lot of emails out to Fantasy writers of books, movies, etc. about how Ninjas are the new Knights. Dig up JRR Tolkein and tell him that armored warriors were just a farce and that he should have had Ninjas take out the orcs and such. Keep Guardians as tanks. Let other people have this crazy DPS i keep hearing about. Guilen Message Edited by Guilen on 09-22-2005 08:17 AM
NUKE SPELLS???? HAHAHA...WE are guardians we dont do damage we take it...altho we used to take it and live, being tanks that lived on in infamy, but now we take a couple hits die and then a REAL tank like a Bruiser jumps in and kicks the crap outa the mob... BTW the story with Arthur Very funny, I enjoyed it here at work... Covenant
Just messing around but since you want to pull fantasy films and real life situations into view here ya go. haha even jrr tolkien new warriros were **** gimli got his [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] whooped by legolas and stryder. Both those rangers were not only bad [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot], but took bettter hits and killed more mobs then gimli. In fact all the warropr types in that film got killed or beat down. The king of rohan .. Dead . Boromir .... dead. sad to say but warriors are **** go ranger =p
Gunga I cant help but notice you stop claiming you have a 52 guardian along with your Bruiser, and I also notice that you tag has gone from 50-51-52 back to 50 again now...weird... and convenient. Covenant
Just wondering ....Because Templars got a Mezz line thought you may have gotton a nuke line :smileywink:
Check out the bolded part of his post. If you want to be sarcastic in a reply, at least comprehend what is being said.
err Guilen monks are no ninja's , ninja's are more like assasins , and you put it soo well that if a big giant dragon swoops in Plate armor seems to make a diffrence ....i dont think the Dragon agrees with your wimpy platemail when it hits , as i dont see why a few mm of plate lets you take so much damage , and as a matter of fact how are you even able to move in that ? but then again we are in a fantasy setting "gasp" where anything is possible , even "shrug" brawlers being able to take a hit. but ! if i where you idd put my money on the guy with a Powersuit , Portable rail cannon and a whole lot of range between him and the dragon , but crap they didnt code that into EQ2.
Like REIGN OF FIRE??? Did anyone actually pay to see that movie??? Covenant Besides I think you should give Guards' L A S E R S, with auto targeting systems, we will cut dragons to shreds!!
