Toranx@Crushbone wrote: Ya. To balance the guardian with an SK you would need. 1. To up our dps 2. The ability to heal ourselves 3. Feign Death 4. evac 5. An ability so we can't be feared. Did I miss anything? I think a simple duration to our stoneskins is not to much to ask for.
Be careful what you wish for, the expansion might just let you put another 50 aa in the existing trees. In which case taking DR will be worth the aa.
Bocon@Permafrost wrote: Oh I get it. Your one of those Guards that doesn't really like playing like a Guard and instead wants to play his tank like a SK. Go roll a SK with the rest of the nubs that can't read descriptions when they roll a class.
Bruener wrote: I did. The guardian should have the best defensive abilities and be able to take the most damage. That is what I am asking for. I fine with SKs doing more dps if we can take more damage. That is the way it was when I first created this class. I remember when you SKs used to ask if you could come along in the group for dps and no one wanted an SK tank. No where does it say this will all change down the road. I do like playing my guardian, I just think it is comical that you are talking about balance. Maybe you should go back and read the descriptions. Anyway I am done argueing with you. I didn't want this to be class vs class discussion but I can see that is impossible in these forums.
Boli32 wrote: I think you misunderstood me. This is a guard thread and we just want the opinions of guardians who are currently playing full time ( i do not consider being in a top end guild and having your alt guard geared to the max as playing a guard). You can tank in odd groups with mediocre players on your paladin then good for you sir. As far as your attempt to dump, the nerf of your heal crits, blame on us is concerned then to be honest i personally did not know about until i read the update notes and frankly i couldn't care less about another tank class. I cannot speak for the whole guardian community but i can assert myself as being an antagonist to the whole notion of "nerfing a class to bring the other class in line". That is just plain studpidity and just illustrates how SOE have run out of ideas to balance the classes. I never feel the need or urge to go in another tank class thread and say, you know, this is way too overpowered nor do i start a rant about how to play the class with players who have seen and done it all just because i have an alt crusader for example. The point you made about about avoiding through contested avoidance is not entirely correct even if you state it is heroic content. In heroic content mobs just don't hit hard enough for avoidance to be an issue. The gear will most certainly help and so will a decent group setup with competant set of players. The guardians post gu 57 are better but still not a class that has written MT material all over it. I have played with some of the best crusaders on my server and they pretty much trample over guardians in almost all aspects even after the so-called heal crit nerfs but im willing to lean more towards player skill than gear here. So in short...please stick to your class and when we need your advice then surely you will see a thread about it in your class thread but for now i think we have enough good guardians left in the game to come up with something productive.
Humayon wrote: Well considering the OP was about comparing Guard stoneskins to supposed other Fighter abilities it seems perfectly logical for other fighters to correct the ASSumptions made by the OP and throughout the thread. The claim of other tanks having of 30 seconds of immunity is ridiculous and completely false. That was the basis of the whole OP when trying to ask for duration on Stoneskins. So since the basis of the OP was on that, and that info was completely false, why exactly does this thread exist?
It's funny boil and brownie feel the need to take a big steaming dump in every guard thread on this board in the last 6 months. You guys must really hate guardians. I'm sorry if your daddy touched you and plays a guard, but chill out.
Bruener wrote: This thread exists to fix the guardian stoneskins. They work well against single mobs but they don't work against group mobs. Adding a duration would fix that. If adding a duration to the guardian stoneskin makes it the best defensive abiltity in the game, well it should because guardians should have the best defensive abilties in the game. The original post didn't mention any other tank classes specifically. You come in here specifially to derail the discussions. You don't have a guardian so stay out. I did figure out why you are in here. You have over 375 days of play time on your SK. You have no life and have nothing else to do. You are probably the guy they based that South Park episode after.
Bocon@Permafrost wrote: Ok so this is what the OP was. It looks to me that you are complaining about "hard" instances being too tough for your Guard since his multiple amounts of stoneskins aren't 30 sec invulnerabilities that supposedly other tanks have. So here is everything that is wrong with your post. First, as other people have pointed out, even quite a few of your fellow Guards, there are no "hard" instances that Guards have trouble with. The instances are all pretty laughable and there is nothing a healer can't overcome with a mediocre tank. Second, you claim your stoneskins are crap, but the truth of the matter is that stoneskins are an extremely powerful ability and scale up to be more powerful the harder the content. Since a single stoneskin can block an unlimited amount of damage from a single hit. Furthermore the stoneskins can absorb any type of damage, not just melee. This xpac has moved more towards AE/spell damage being huge spike factors versus in the past melee was. Third, you claim that other tanks have invulnerabilities that last 30 seconds. That is completely false. There is not a single tank out there that has a 30 sec invulnerability. Zerkers have 30 sec of 50% damage reduction on like a 1 min recast. Paladins have their 8 sec Parry (note only works on melee attacks) on like a 1 min recast. SKs have their 15 sec Furor on like a 2:30 recast with good reuse (again this is Riposte which only works on melee attacks and can be struck thru). Brawlers have their 12 sec Tsunami on a 1 min recast (again Melee only). The abilities you are targetting are much shorter than what you lead on and are for melee only. Not to mention that as a Guard you can in fact spec for a similar ability that would allow you to Parry all incoming Melee attacks for a short time. Finally, what you propose is way OP'd giving a class that already has very powerful abilities to absorb damage the ability to become invulnerable for half the time they are tanking. Its like Adrenaline on crack. And thanks for looking up my playtime. Yes I have played since launch and have seen a lot in the tanking world. Maybe you should listen to people that obviously know the game a lot better than you do.
I've not logged in outside of a raid for ages but even a couple of months ago there wasn't a single "Hard" instance and from your gear you're not trying the new HM Guk instance. For heroic content though if you really want to play a Guardian you should be specced for AOE auto attack to help on hate, in which case it's a couple of points to Dragoons. This is the only real ability that is similar to what you're asking for, the only other 2 are Defensive Minded(DM) and Guardian Sphere (GS). GS will help a lot with lots of mobs on you, Defensive minded will help slightly but it's main use is the recast reduction. You can actually combine the 2 so you get the Stoneskin proc and 20% avoidance while reducing the recast of GS, so it's up earlier next time. If you're having that much trouble though betray to Zerker, they are far better in Heroic content and actually pretty much even in raid content now. Guardians need their mitigation buffs changed to damage reduction to make them actually useful, our abilities that can still kill us fixing so they can be used and a slight increase in DPS when behind a shield. The only other thing I'd like but will more than likely never happen is Tower of stone reduced from a 2 min base recast to a 1min 20 sec base recast so with full recast on it, it can be up every AOE set so we can use it to block 1 AOE every set like a Zerker can reduce ALL AOE's by 50%. You're wrong Bruener, Adrenalin has a 30 second recast (recast starts when ability ends) and you've forgotten to mention that SK's and Paladins also have Legionarres Conviction (40% Spell damage reduction 3 min recast, with a 200% damage reflect). Yes a Guardians stone skins are powerful in stopping spike damage, but over the course of a fight a lot of the other fighters abilities will stop more damage to the fighter than a Guardians stone skins will. Stone skins are situational and aren't useful in the way the OP wants them to be useful in.
Soul_Dreamer wrote: Its only a 40% damage reduction, not 100% which stoneskins are; and only reduces spell damage not both. Of course the damage part of the buff is too OPed and should have never been there in the first place but the point is that is only spell damage not both and only reduces damage not prevent entirely. What the OP is complaining about is the number of triggers so for easier content you will still get hit by the majority of the hits instead of a duration effect other tanks have (abit with drawbacks). The fact remains to each immunity or damage reduction there are drawbacks associated with each one. Guardian's drawback is a set number of triggers, which means the ability is more suited to single harder hitting named than lots of small hitting named. In anythign but swarms of smaller mobs the guardian abilities are BETTER than the other tanks; and even then you still have abilities to assist you with swarms of mobs (DM/GS). Of all the things guardians need tweaks on... their stoneskin based abilities are NOT one of them.
<---- WTF is with the Christmas tree??? BAH HUMBUG! Pretty sure I said it was spell damage reduction, Bruener started in with listing abilities other tanks have and saying they where Melee ONLY disregarding the fact that crusaders have this ability which works with spells ONLY. I know exactly what the OP is complaining about and I've already stated the the Stone skins a Guardian has aren't meant for that type of encounter and are situational. If he wants abilities for that sort of thing then he needs to use GS/DM or spec for Dragoons, seriously Boli, do you even read before you reply?
You did, I was just expanded on what is a spell damage only ability. My main point being all damage immunities have SOME drawback for the two stoneskin like abilities guardian's get.. its number of triggers.
Thanks for all of the information. I know that I am not the only one struggling with this zone (Palace). I have been in there with a number of other tanks on my wizard and they all agree this is a hard zone. I have never been to this zone where we don't die at least a few times. Even when the tank is full raid geared. That being said, I can tell it easier for other tanks then it is for my guardian. Because when things start going bad, they have abilities that can help get us out of trouble. The guardian abilities don't help in those situations. I don't know what an appropriate duration should be for our stoneskins, I was just suggesting times. I would let SOE or someone who knows the other tanks better then me decide. I am struggling with the guardian because he is not wanted on raids and other tanks can do the group zones better then I can. Maybe it is a skill issue but I have had people say I play my guardian well. I am sure there are people who play a lot better then me but I don't believe I am horrible. My guardian was my main forever but I have switched to my wizard because I had no choice. The guardian is not wanted on raids, he can't do group zones as well as other tanks, and he is laughable in the battlegrounds. When I run across a guardian in the bgs on my wizard I am embarassed for them because I know they will be dead shortly and I will be at full health unless they have two healers following them. I just think Guardians should have the best defensive abilities in the game. I don't think they should be situational. I think they should be the best all of the time. If they are not, then what use is the guardian?
Bruener wrote: Thanks for the info. If you are genuinely here to help then I apologize. It seemed like you were here just to argue at first and it seems like you have something against guards. Again, I think the guardians defensive abilities should be the best in all cases because that is what we are here for. I agree the stoneskins are probably the best in raid situations but those of us that don't get to raid with our guards are kind of screwed. I don't want to roll another class but at this point I am not sure what else to do.
As Boli and Bruener have said, you can't have ToS and LMS on durations with unlimited charges due to how overpowered it would be, they would then have to be % chance to proc a stone skin and so can't be relied upon 100% like they can now to stop damage when they need to. You then end up with 3 different versions of Guardian Sphere, YAY! The questions you're asking most Guardians have been asking for quite a while. The only thing a Guardian does well is tank single mobs and take the damage from the single mob. This doesn't transfer well to Heroic instance tanking due to the large AOE encounters and the fact a Guardian pays a LARGE amount of DPS for those 2 spike handeling tools. The fact is a Guardian "Should" have more over the other tanks than they currently do defensively, due to our higher mitigation, but due to a bug we don't. All tanks have relatively equal mitigation so take pretty much the same amount of damage. The only real things that make a difference currently are self heals and temp reduction abilities. Paladins and Zerkers having innate/often useable DR abilities mean they are actually ahead of us slightly in sustained damage reduction, they also have higher DPS and hate. SK's have high DPS and hate and while they take the most damage of the 4 plate tanks they have BL to offset this slightly and some other abilities to reduce damage on longer recasts. Guardians have a couple of abilities that can STOP damage for a short period but they aren't very good on encounters of 2 mobs or more really and they have lower DPS and hate. As a Guardian who only really plays in groups and raids every so often I'd betray, there's nothing stopping you and you'll keep all current masters if you decide to go back. As a Zerker you'll have higher DPS and make an excellent group tank/raid OT and also a capable raid MT. If you want to stay a Guardian then you'll need to invest in some SW proc gear from the sounds of things and change your AA spec slightly to make up in areas you're currently lacking in. Not to be patronising but go through your defensive abilities and look at how they can be combined, DM and GS can be used with an overlap that will add a large chunk of avoidance, close to 50% for almost 30 seconds, DM will also reduce the recast of abilities while it's up so you can use it to spike DPS (Hate). I'm sure Boli and Bruener will throw their toys out of the pram for saying this but.... a Guardian isn't as easy to play as the other plate tanks, a lot of our abilities have to be used correctly/in the right order/proactively to get the most out of them and to maximise DPS. As I said though, Zerker is the way to go for you IMO.
It's a very old argument. Guardian stoneskins aren't broken. The expectations of what Guardians 'should' be able to do is broken by what some of the other fighter classes 'can' do. Guardians can't do what some other fighters can and we get NOTHING in return to compensate us for that. Stoneskins are very powerful in the right situation. Unfortunatly that right situations are few and far between. Some here seem to think that those 1-2 raid mob situations make all the fighter classes balanced even though they have self wards/heals, always up multiple triggers of death save and 50% Damage Reduction for 50% of the time.
Soul_Dreamer wrote: Thanks again. I will look at combining DM and GS. I haven't tried that. I just don't want to go through the work of getting the fabled weapon, mythical, and enervated again if I betray. But this was very helpful.
Wasuna wrote: I agree completely. The argument that "Every tank can tank all content but differently" says it should be so, if other tanks can take the damage of every mob out there, and the incomming damage is within a couple of percent (which is the case) then the outgoing damage and utility needs to also be within a couple of percent. The mitigation fix was meant to change this so that Guardians once again had a defensive advantage but the other tanks shouted it down and it's been postponed till the expansion, if it even releases then, because they whined they may not be able to tank the content they do now in the same way. Other tanks argue that we can't have similar DPS due to our "Stone skins" being so good, everytime I've argued the other way they just shout us down. Our stone skins can absorb 1 AOE out of a set of 3 (most mobs) about 75% of the time due to recasts, to do this it has to be timed to the second. A Berzerker can reduce EVERY SINGLE AOE by 50%, and they can do it by popping 1 ability anywhere form 1 seconds before the AOE set starts to 15 seconds before. Then if you look at the AOE damage, snaps and other tools a Berzerker has.... where exactly are they paying for that damage reduction in the same way a Guardian has to pay for it?
Bocon@Permafrost wrote: Go to Nek docs, if you have the Buff and the stripped fabled weapon then you can buy the Berzerker version when you betray. Only thing you'll need are seals for red adorns (to switch over any raid armour), Adept 3's or masters and time to learn the class.
