Hi Guys A new player here, enjoying the game. I’m only lv 20 and after some reading decided upon a guardian as the tank to wanted to play. Whilst I can find guides online I’m more interested in hearing from experienced players on how the class is at much higher level with all abilities for group etc content. Do you find it’s a tough enough tank to take the hits and protect his team members? Cheers Kal
Guardian was your go to raiding tank for almost the entire life span of the game. They had a lot of Damage Reduction abilities and Stoneskins. In the later expansions a lot of the tank meta has been shifted towards doing more damage instead of surviveability, mostly to hold aggro. Surviving can now mostly be covered by healers with their death saves and instant heals. All the tank specs can tank. A lot of guilds prefer to use monks currently because of one single ability. Dragon fire combined with crazy scaling (despite a 40% reduction) and reset rune can do around 50-60% even on single target fights. This combined with Tsunami makes it an incredible strong tank.
I used to know a guy back in the day played a guard with a similar name as your kaldon, you sure your new lol
Hi guys Thanks for feedback , sounds like all tanks play well with the monk doing very well. Is my name the same similar to someone else who played guard?, hopefully I can play it as well as them then lol. K
Just like with any class, its all about stats at max level. For solo play -- it is super easy even with chest gear (free gear you can get at max level) and becomes mindnumbingly tedious if you have better gear -- this is true of any class in the game. Group - guards are expected to tank and you need to know your class a decent amount, have at least up to expert level spells and abilities, ascension upgrades will increase your dps by a whole lot and increased dps=increased threat. Your mileage varies depending on your stats so even if you have upgraded your class abilities to max level they will not do much until you have the basic stats such as potency/crit bonus/fervor etc at the right amount. So the point im making here is that for group play you will get access to decent gear that you will like to infuse to give you a boost in stats and see yourself improve with gear. Raid - Guards have been and still are a solid tank to be in raids but it depends on player skill/stats and the raiders you end up raiding with. Entry conditions to raid as a guard are very high unless you know your class inside out and have adequate stats to meet the checks of the raid content or a guild ithat s desparate to fill some spots and you happen to be around. Entry into main tanking a raid is significantly more demanding as by default guards are at the lowest scale of dps (remember dps = hate) out of all tank classes so you need to be very adequately geared (i.e. stats are at the level of the content you will tank) and equally skilled in leading a raid force. It is not unheard of a guild using a main tank as guard these days and as a matter of fact some top world wide guilds actually have guards as Main tanks but the common sense would dictate that if you have other tank classes who can be defensively be almost as good as a guardian and can do alot more dps then why would you want to have a guard. Not the best summation of what guards are like but its a general gist of state of play at max level. There was once upon a time that a guardian with mediocre gear who knew the class very well would give a fully decked out raid guard a run for his money just because of the skill difference. That time has long gone where gear augmented your skill. Now, its all about stats. oh yes I have been playing guard for 14 years.
Hi Arclite I appreciate the detailed answer broken down into group and raid setup and basic requirements, whilst I’ve a huge amount to learn your answer has helped massively. Kal
Keep in mind, the Guardian can be a hard class to level. And getting into a raid, is hard, as most raids only need 2 maybe 3 tanks total. And yeah I have been Guardian since launch.
These days Guardian can ditch out some serious DPS if they have the right gear and class spells and ascensions at GM or better. They won't beat a monk in a dps race but they will still make serious difference to the fight both in groups and raids. As with all things, it takes lot of time and/or money to get the right gear and spells ...
