The left end line is pretty good, I'd prefer it to stay exactly as it is and we've had quite a few changes since then. Those requests/ideas where before the changes currently on test, personally I think the only issues left are: Middle line, Stonesphere - Pretty much epic trash which is worthless taking. The hate gain part of Champions Shout. Increment gain rate. Cast time and "Will of the Champion" that reduces it. Some other classes have exactly the same issue, it's like it's been given a long cast time for the very reason of giving us a prestige to reduce us. It should be 0.5 as standard and an actual useful prestige. With the increment saving there is very, very, little reason to leave Interception running so the duration increase won't actually do much. At the very least the duration increase should be removed and replaced with something useful instead. EG: 1 point - Adds "Will of the Champion" to Champions interception. Immunity to "No Hostile" for the Group for 3 seconds. Reduces cast time of Champions Interception to 1 second. 2 points - Add immunity to "No Beneficial" for the group for the 3 seconds. Reduces cast time of Champions Interception to 0.5 seconds. 3 points - Increase the duration of "Will of the Champion" by 50%. Reduces cast time of Champions Interception to instant. A Global problem I believe exists: The conversions should be middle lines, once you've spent 9 points in the top part of the tree, you should be able to choose one of the 2 conversions. The bottom lines can then only be chosen once you have a conversion and allow either to be chosen, basically unlink the top and bottom trees.
I haven't been able to recopy to Test with my 95 to even see any of these changes sadly I keep getting "test logs are turned off for this region/server" errors. So I will take your word for it that there ARE changes on test. Still agreed that the incremental gain rate is too unreliable for fights that don't have hard-timed large AE's like most PoW mobs the CoE mobs seem to have random AE's much like Gozak or other TSO bosses. If stonesphere bumped Guardian Sphere to a reuse (with reuse modifiers at their max 50% or base time) to be usable every 60 seconds I think that would be worth the AA. As is You only net about 10-15 seconds off the time making it 70-75 seconds recast.
These are the changes on test as posted by Bunji http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/update-notes-wednesday-november-14-2012.542/ I'm sure the idea behind the stonesphere change was just to give us x% more survivability, on paper it does this because the ability can be used more often. In practice though this isn't how Guardians use the ability, on harder mobs we rotate it with other abilities, the reduced recast in this scenario actually does nothing for us because it doesn't enable us to change the rotation order, it just means it will be up during a time we wouldn't be using it anyway. If it is going to stay on stonesphere then it needs to increase the proc % so it gives us whatever survivability increase Xelgad has calculated this prestige should. Failing that add a base recast onto one of our personal stoneskins instead, or add a stoneskin charge to "Block" (The AA), anything like that would be useful. Currently this AA won't be taken by many Guardians.
Going for pure on paper again (I still can't get on Test it's driving me nuts) Like Guardian Sphere we cycle spells alot based on whats about to happen. Perhaps letting a fraction of Champions Interception say 1/2 the incremented DR gets applied to the Guardian as well? Allowing us to truly soak an AE for the group every 1.5-2 minutes based on the current incremental gain being rather slow. I really want to get on test and give more accurate feedback than simply speculation though right now though with the exception of some PoW fights Champions Interception seems like the weaker survival line oddly enough as the offense line gives better hate gain through dps and CB increases as well as more DR (5-6% on Grit). This is only as current on Live not accounting the changes on Test.
The change adds 1.5% Damage reduction to champions watch, per point. This is the persistent buff you cast to gain increments from the group getting hit and amounts to a permanent 4.5% Damage reduction. Everytime I've tried to get onto test the char select screen tells me it's down, Karz got on and gave me these numbers. *Edit - Creating a char got me onto test although it still says it's down for my old Guardian on there which is weird. Frankly an easy change to the hate part would be to add it to watch as well and reduce the % per increment, that way we just gain extra hate all the time based on increments and it will reduce a lot on fights we have to use Interception. So the gaining of points will actually be always useful not just on the fights we need to reduce inc damage to the group. Maybe 0.33/0.66/0.99 per increment so at full increments we're getting 50% of damage added as hate.
Was checking out the return rates on Champions Sight increments, right now it seems to return less and less the longer you leave Champions Interception running. Given how slow it stacks I see no incentive to leave it running for more than 1 second to soak an AE and immediately turn off for 50% stack return. To make this spell more reliable either it needs to gain faster or return more stacks even if it is toggled off at the last second. A suggestion either a flat return percent like 50% of stacks or just stack like 5% of the time when the Guardian takes damage much like the Illusoinist's proc for group potency. I love the idea of keeping the MT group in on a death-AE but it just seems so hit or miss right now. I like the idea of Champions Sight giving something to the Guardian meaning we have reason to not use interception; I like options and DR or Max hp would work though the per increment would have to be low like as you said. New thing I would like some feed back on, someone rips hate on incoming and Recapture is not affecting target at all to myself or my offtank could someone verify this spell?
Guess I can't reedit my post, was checking the stackrate of Guardian Sight and at least on trash-heavy fights especially in HM CoE content you can average a 25% DR on your group per-AE that is dangerous. Did HM of the 2nd to last guy in ST and even 25% DR was enough to make sure the wards protected me without half the group dropping into orange/red from being too close. Still have yet to watch add fights like Berik or Tagrin on Plane of War though it seems to charge very slow outside of CoE mobs.
Hm, just reviewing spells the PvP version of Sentinel is actually more useful, I find myself hardly casting it on healers in groups or raids as it only increases the damage I take which is already high enough by most standards.
