The left AA tree in its current state is extremely disappointing. The main points (details can be found on the beta boards): First and foremost, where are the personal survivability improvements? Every single other fighter class got them; why not guardians, the class that is supposed to be the most defensive? This will shift tank balance significantly. Guardian's Interception can't be used very frequently due to the slow increment gain rate. When it can indeed be used, it doesn't do enough. Paladins get personal stoneskins, damage reflect, group damage reduction, and group damage reflect. Monks get personal AE immunity, target AE immunity, personal CC immunity, target CC immunity, target damage reduction, target drag. We get...group damage reduction. Nothing of any personal use (the trivial threat and irrelevant incoming heal bonus can be discounted due to base ability mechanics; see my posts on the beta boards for details); inferior group utility. The base cast time is ridiculously long. Only guardians are saddled with that kind of hindrance; the paladin equivalent ability, for instance, casts in 0.75 s, which can be reduced to 0 s with 3 AA points. The middle AA tree is too weak, aside from the max HP bonus shared between all fighter. The end line ability should have the base reuse reduction doubled or be changed to instead increase the stoneskin proc rate. Other options may be found on the beta boards.
Yeah, everything about our prestiges lacks luster or significant benefit to *US*. I assume aggregate is they want to minimize the class again by buffing everyone else up (again). Hardcore raid forces will leverage Guardain OT's and some will use Guardian MT's, but for the masses, the class probably wont be favored as much as everyone sorts out the aggregate changes across all fighters.
Yep that is basically what I am getting as a Raiding Guardian, My lines are **** for utility compared to even non-tank classes for groups. My dps is still rock-bottom poor I am roughly 20th on the parse doing 150-200K (in defensive). There aren't enough AE's to even charge Sentry Sight for the DR so that's useless if this really is what the "core tank" is supposed to be I may aswell roll a monk. Even with jacked up progress I tank in the 5th guild worldwide and I feel useless as a guardian now at least I had a purpose in DoV since I still had the best stone-skins which now I don't even have anymore. Tanks are supposed to have specific rolls trying to "balance" them so that your other AE tanks and Deflection tanks can MT is just stupid. Situationally fine like Eriak for Fearless Spec Crusaders. For pete sake Guards have been crapped on since RoK it's sad that they are so bad at it. I am unsure if its just because the other tank types have more vocal players or sony just hates guardians but I may seriously quit over this piss-poor excuse for an expansion.
From the Test Server update notes: Apparently, Xelgad has been listening! I'm at work right now, so I don't have any way of checking the actual numbers, but even a little damage reduction goes a long way. It will hopefully prove enough to add that missing survivability aspect to our defensive tree. I, for one, am cautiously optimistic.
Now I'm home, but the test server appears to have been unreachable since yesterday, so there isn't any way of testing the changes. Ah, well. I guess we'll have to wait until the changes are pushed live.
Champion's Shout now adds 1.5% Damage Reduction per AA invested, so 4.5% with the max investment. This is a permanent bonus. Not nearly as much as I was hoping for--I wanted 10% - 15%--but hey, it is still the best AA ability in either tree.
I've cleared a couple of the new raid zones on live using the left tree, and my initial impression still stands: Guardian's Sight builds increments way too slowly. During several named fights, I never even reached 50 increments, which is downright silly. In most fights, you're going to get at most one chance to use Guardian's Interception with 50 increments, no more. Now, I haven't had a chance to test in PoW yet; I'm still hopeful the ability will work better in the Commanders fight and the like. If it doesn't, I'm going for the new abilities in the left tree exclusively because of the new personal Damage Reduction buff; the endline, while not bad, isn't better than what you get from the right tree.
I haven't looked at what other tanks get, but I like the guard prestige abilities... permanent 10% damage reduction for all healers is sweet. I think Karnoz is expecting way too much from Guardian's whatever it's called. To me, group wide 10% damage reduction is significant, 50% across the whole group (except tanks) is insanely good. Being able to cancel early and get points back is icing. If it's taking forever to fill up to a decent amount (like 10 - 15% DR is nice and worth casting), then it is probably a pretty controlled/predictable/easy fight anyway. It's on memwiping adds and when things get chaotic that the ability will charge faster, which is good cuz those are the times you need it. I think some of you guys are wanting to use the 50% DR every couple AoEs to save your group or something... I see it more like an alternate save when sentry watch is down. Otherwise, might as well just give us an AoE blocker on 3 min recast.
I don't think we are expecting too much. If class A and class B are relatively balanced and you give A defensive abilities without giving them to B then you've effected that balance. Who cares if class B once every so often can allow the group to stay in for an AOE. To keep relative balance both classes need to be given abilities that even if different offer similar gains. The increment gain is very low, this was pointed out by a couple of us in Beta, you're looking at a full use every 3-4 mins on most fights. Frankly I dropped the line and went for the DPS line until changes where made. This actually gives better returns because you can keep up the 6% DR on the offesnive line almost all the time. And the ability parses pretty well. Yes we're expecting to use the 50% DR every couple of AOE's, IMO at least every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. We're Guardians, almost all of our meaningful utility is geared towards protecting the group and/or ourselves. If a mob has 2 AOE's on a 30 sec timer and no other real effects, maybe a CC pulsing AOE (the 15% chance every 15 seconds sort of thing). Your increment gain from the group will be 5 per AOE, so 20 a minute. Add onto that the ones from taunts, 1 every 5 seconds. You're looking at a combined gain of 32 a minute assuming you use the taunt every time it's up. As a nice ballpark figure call that 30 a minute. Basically one in 6 AOE's assuming you're taking 4 AOE's per minute. Even assuming the group is being hit every AOE is a huge assumption to make, if you roll with a druid, the group will more than likely be AOE avoiding 2 of those every 2 mins. So there go 10 increments every 2 mins. The Coercer will be AOE avoiding one person in the group every 30 seconds. There goes another 2 increments a min. On some fights we have both MT healers being avoided so they can stay in on brutal AOE's and on reds. The MT Dirge will be using turnstrike, every 40 seconds or so. There goes another increment. The MT cleric will be using his AOE avoid every 40 seconds. The whole raiding game has been geared towards players avoiding being damage as much as possible to succeed and abilities have been put in game centered around this idea. The fact we gain increments when people are damaged seems a little backwards to me but hey ho. There will obviously be some fights where increment gain is very high, these will be fights with reactive damage (from damage shields) and fights with pulsing effects that have a chance to damage every x seconds. Anyone managed to get onto test to check the numbers? I was hoping this would be pushed live pretty quickly TBH. Karn, what are your raid days? I'm not in POW again until Tuesday but would like to know how it behaves in there.
Yeah, I logged to the test server. I didn't have a high-level character there, but I was able to examine the prestige abilities. Champion's Shout adds 1.5% Damage Reduction per AA, so max 4.5%. This is a passive bonus attached to Champion's Watch, so it is a permanent bonus--pretty much what you were asking for. Considering that we're able to acquire close-to-maintainable 6% Damage Reduction from the offensive tree, though, I still think the bonus should be at least 10%, but that said, 4.5% is certainly not useless. It will reliably and consistently improves our survivability, which is just what the doctor ordered...unlike the Sphere end line from the middle tree, which I haven't even bothered wasting points on. Deviation raids Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. While we've killed everything in PoW, we haven't been in there since the new expansion went live; we've instead been busy getting some guild-first kills up on the progress boards. Anyway, I'm pretty sure we'll be back in PoW next week.
I'm not going to dispute that you, Sixgauge, may get enough value out of Guardian's Interception, but you've got to acknowledge that you and I effectively don't play the same game (i.e., easy-mode vs challenge-mode). When our raid wipes as a result of MT group failure, it almost always happens for one of the following reasons: 1. MT is insta-killed (e.g., by a death touch or hard-hitting AE), 2. MT group is stifled, stunned, knocked back, or otherwise incapable of healing/curing, 3. MT group healers are killed by hard-hitting AE, 4. MT group triggers encounter fail script. Of those four reasons, 1 and 3 are what our left tree is all about preventing. The two old abilities that modify Defensive Minded and now the new ability that adds 4.5% damage reduction all enhance MT survivability, and thus, lessen the chance that the MT will be insta-killed. As for the rest of the tree--namely, the group damage prevention temp buff and the endline--is all about keeping the MT group healers standing through AE's that, for whatever reason, aren't being blocked. Now, in order to be viable as part of an actual raid strategy, our new temp buff must above all else be reliable, with regards to both efficacy and availability: We must know when it will be available, it must be available relatively often, and when it is available, we must know that it will indeed get the job done. Availability is pretty easily covered: the ability must be player-triggered, the increments must accumulate at a reasonably consistent rate, and the rate must be high enough for us to be able to use the ability at 50 increments frequently enough to make a significant impact on the strategy of any fight involving hard-hitting AE's. As for efficacy, it's all about knowing that Guardian's Interception will keep the group alive. If you don't know with near-absolute certainty that your damage reduction buff is going to keep your healers alive, you simply don't tell them to stay in for a hard-hitting AE. Imagine if Blade Dance had a 50% chance of not working: Nobody would rely upon it in a raid strategy. The healers sure as hell wouldn't abstain from jousting that hard-hitting AE if they knew they stood a 50% chance of causing a wipe. Hence, it isn't a viable tactic to use Guardian's Interception when you've accumulated a mere 10 - 15 increments; at that point, you simply aren't able to guarantee that the healers will stay alive if they do stay in, at least not vs the kind of hard-hitting AE I'm talking about; if we're talking easy-mode AE's, which I believe is what your guild is used to dealing with, then you don't need GI to begin with. So, you build up those increments until you're able to cut so much down on incoming damage that being hit in the first or second range band (while behind the mob) isn't much worse than being hit in the third--and that means 30% - 50%, depending on the AE and the range bands involved. So, no; asking for Guardian's Interception to be able to reach 50 increments every 1 - 2 minutes isn't unreasonable. Sentry Watch, fully AA-enhanced, often has too short range to cover all group members, especially the coercer (annoying as hell). Sentry Watch also doesn't cover protect everyone, no matter what; it has three triggers while there are five people in the group you'd like to save. I'd love an AE blocker. Guardian's Interception, however, doesn't block anything. No matter the damage reduction, the AE still stifles, knocks back, and/or whatever other components it sports.
We pull and kill some of the easier hm mobs as well as just regular mobs that will 1 shot anyone that doesn't joust or otherwise avoid the aoe. You're looking for an aoe blocker which this ability is not.
Taking on challenge-mode mobs from a previous expansion post level increase doesn't qualify as killing hard-mode mobs. There are only a couple of non-percentage-based AE's in Drunder that will single-shot people these days. A year ago, I'd say eight out of ten AE's would single-shot anyone, including tanks, standing in front of or right behind the named. At any rate, I'm not especially looking for an AE blocker. I am, however, looking for a use for Guardian's Interception, the ability Xelgad decided to grant us. Aside from the extremely situational (e.g., a mob that can't be tanked by fighters), Guardian's Interception has one, and only one, worthwhile purpose: namely, it may potentially allow the MT group to periodically not range/joust an AE that would otherwise single-shot them. That's it. If GI isn't able to accomplish that, then it is, by itself, not worth the invested AA points. It's as simple as that. Now, that said, I'd still get it no matter what, if for no other reason than the attached personal 4.5% Damage Reduction buff.
The ability is in no way a second sentry watch and shouldn't be used as such. If your intention is to use this ability as a death save for when things go wrong then you should really be rethinking how you play and strategies you use. The only real use this ability fills is so it can be used either in rotation with other abilities to keep the MT group up through effects or at specific times in a fight to acheive the same effect. I'm pretty happy with the 4.5% Damage reduction permenantly, it's pretty balanced with the Monk amounts. I still pretty much hate the threat part though, but I can live with it. As previously said, fights where we won't be using this ability to protect the group will more than likely be the fights where increment gain is very slow. Even with double the hate on this if you can only use it once every 2 mins, that hate gain is negligable when averaged out over those 2 mins. 200k over 12 seconds will be 2,400,000 ,2.4% per increment will mean 120% for all 50. 2,400,000 x 1.2 = 2,880,000. If you can only use this every 2 mins thats 24,000 hate per second gained. It's basically like increasing your DPS by 12k if you're at 100% hate mod. Sphere of Defense - In my defensive build, I'll be using these 2 points to reduce the cast time of Intercept and have 3 points in HP gain. This amounts to 15 seconds off the recast because we already have an AA that with minor amounts of re-use can cap the ability. This is a very, very poor choice of Prestige and doesn't actually offer any real gain. We've offered enough suggestions for alternatives. Champions Glare - Just a minor change to again address the issue of increment gain, although admittedly we could really do with hard numbers here from proper named . Add the same effect to Shout. Provoke - 4.6 recast - 13 per min Shout - 5.7 recast - ~11 per min. A maximum total of 24 per minute. It will take a minimum of 2 full minutes to use the ability on fights at 50 increments where the group is taking very limited damage. On fights where they're taking a lot of damage, these will not be our primary source of points anyway and likely we're more concentrating on timing abilities than spamming a taunt every time it's up. At the very least it would be nice if we could continue to feedback on increment gain on named fights so you can adjust as required if it is very low on some named.
I use it as one of many tools for damage control when things start falling apart. If your raids are so tight a tank never goes down, memwipes are instantly handled, and mobs never get loose and turn against the raid then I guess you would get little use from the ability. It's a save in my toolbox along with tower of stone, sentry watch, block, group mit/dr buffs, etc etc. It's not something I try to wedge into some rotation like a combat art or aoe blocker. Basically I don't see this as an ability that is intended to be fully charged and used several times per fight, but if they do make the triggers come faster and easier, I won't complain. I'm happy with a group 10% DR temp buff once a minute, anything on top of that is gravy. I guess I'm easy to please.
The core issue I have gained from reading forums regarding Guardians and especially vs Monks is that they(monks) got an equivalent package to many Guardian type abilities (hp increase and the like) where Guards were handed a low-triggering group DR and not much for themselves. On live my Champions Shout line for CI doesn't have 4.5% DR just says "+.4% of personal dps which is already low per rank add 3 ranks ad 1.2% of 200K is only 22K more threat for 3 AA and given T1 is putting out 1.4-2 million on some fights its not enough or seemingly not worth the investment and +.6 or .8% heals received is a raindrop in a bucket compared to Paladins. Champions Interception is unreliable in real hardmode encounters where as stated above wipes happen from MT death, MT Healer restriction/death or fail scripts and Guardians as the "core" of the group survival playstyle tanks are lacking the ability to bring that coupled with good solo. Monks already bring 150-200% more dps over a Guardian so we need our survivability or utility to be markedly higher for our groups to keep us balanced with the Monk each tank should offer different benefits when used on different fights. I would personally agree with some changes listed back on the Beta boards in fact Karnoz is the original poster of these suggestions. I highly agree with any of these singularly being a fix. Allow the guardian a fraction of the damage reduction the group gains due to Guardian's Interception (GI), enough to be significant, so you could forgo use of a stoneskin ability vs an ordinary hard-hitting AE, but not enough to counter a death touch. I'd propose 0.5 damage reduction per increment, so 25% at 50 increments. Balancewise, consider that this would only apply vs a single AE every couple of minutes; it wouldn't contribute any survivability vs procs or auto-attacks except those occurring the second before and after the AE hit. Furthermore, consider that this highly temporary and situational bonus has to be significantly better than the effectively permanent 10% max HP bonus and 3% Extra Riposte Chance monks gained. Change the left endline to permanently render Tower of Stone (ToS) a duration-based stoneskin effect that stoneskins everything for 10 seconds instead of just providing four stoneskin triggers for 10 sec. Change the left endline to permanently increase the damage threshold of Tower of Stone, Last Man Standing, and Perfect Counter, our three on-demand stoneskin abilities, to 40%. No more procs off successful avoids or attacks eating our stoneskins when we need them to counter AE's or death touches. Change the left endline to add one or two stoneskins with a 40% damage threshold to Block (i.e., the endline from the guardian subclass AA tree, not the avoidance type). Change the left endline to an ability that turns Defensive Minded and Hunker Down into non-toggleable buffs, so the reuse timer starts counting when the ability is activated, as opposed to when the buff drops. Change the left endline to add 15% damage reduction or 15% max HP to Battle Cry (the guardian temp mitigation buff). Any less, and the change would be inferior to the 10% max HP and 3% Extra Riposte Chance monks gained. Change the left endline to allow Defensive Minded to proc a stoneskin on any successful avoid, not just dodges. By the way thank you Karnoz for the suggestions you put into words much better than I believe I could have.
