Guardian Hunker Down Ability change for pvp needs a new change!

So it looks like the current test tweak for guardians for pvp is to give then a 15% increase to healing recieved while Hunker Down is up.

First off, let me say on paper that sounds great if the guard has an ideal group that consists of at least 1 beast healer or 2 decent healers (for BG's and open world). However in reality this is rarely the case especially in BG's where is it is not un heard of for groups to be made up of nothing but dps/tanks/mages(no heals). In this case that lovely 15% boost to healing recieved is again completely meaningless as guards do not have any heal whatsoever for pvp or pve. In addition, if jumped while solo in open world, the guard if lucky can survive for a bit alone but not long (by that I mean maybe a few minutes if their extremely lucky and good and geared but thats bout it).

However with that being said, I propose 1 of 2 possible adjustments that would make this upcoming pvp change for the guardian a better overall solution.

Proposal 1) Reduce the amount of healing received from 15% to 5% and add in a heal for 2% - 4% of max hp per combat art while Hunker Down is running. This is the mid proposal that keeps a portion (5%) of the increase to healing received while tandeming it with a modest heal per combat art.

Proposal 2) Remove the 15% increase to healing recieved totally and change this adjustment to be a 10% of max hp heal on combat arts while Hunker Down is running. In addition, possibly set it to proc only once every 5 to 10 seconds.

There are some out there who dont believe that guards deserve a heal at all let alone for pvp however please consider that using BG's as an example I have seen just in this week alone I have seen dozens upon dozens of bruisers, monks, pallys, SK's and Zerkers...but barely (I mean maybe 2 or 3 not including myself) any guardians out there in BG's. There are players with fully raid geared guardians (some of the best in the game) who decline or refuse to play their preferred class for BG's/open world not because that dislike their mains but tbh why play a guardian for pvp with no heals no survivability without dedicated healers when I can play a brawler or a crusader or god forbid a zerker. This is one of the prime reasons that the disparity between the other tanks and guardians in pvp is so much.

I am aware that there was some work put in to already designing the tweak for guardians hunker down ability currently but please take these 2 suggestions into consideration and change this proposed ability adjustment for pvp for the better.

P.S. not realy sure about the % heal amount I gave as suggestions just spitballing as it were for ideas anyone else got some suggestions of a better %heal propotion to hunker down like I suggested.

Guardians should be the ultimate tank, but they aren't...
if an assassin is the "kill quickest" out of the scouts.. then guardian should be the "tank specialist" of the tanks.

When i imagine a guardian, i imagine a player in full plate with helmet covering his face.. he should take almost no dmg, from both melee and magic..
i'd say they should have something like a permanent 40% dmg reduction.

You suggestions Daali bear good reasoning to me. I never BG without a pre-grouped healer because well without a healer I am worthless as a Guardian. Especially vs Spell-Casters. I can last solo for a bit vs a melee but not casters and it really does take out the fun doing little damage AND not surviving long by myself as the supposed "Survival Tank."

I am not sure 40% DR would be balanced Acoloss, Guardians already have significant DR for themselves and group, though less in respect to Zerkers. I would suggest perhaps 1/4-1/2 of the stacks of Champions Interception be applied to the Guardian in PvP. This would cap out at 12-25% DR for the Guardian at maximum stacks of Champions Sight depending on which variable is used.

I wouldn't advocate adding BOTH Heal to Hunker AND DR to the Guard from CI. One or the Other, and I like Daali's suggestion a bit more than the one I just made.

Guards by themselves or in a group without a healer against mages/dps tanks and scouts with or without a healer is almost always certain death in pvp just depends if you live past the 1 -2 minute mark and thats being overly generous. I've been on pvp servers for 8+ years, the first 2 almost exclusively on my old Guardian....from KoS to TSO even solo and either killed or made a damm long fight out of it before I died against every class raid geared or not...longer than 5 minutes was my best in the good old days...nowadays its impossible for me or any guardian to last longer than the time it takes to burn us down say 30 seconds or less even with our death save up in pvp (btw all death saves need a looking at especially the guardians as our is the longest recase once used and heals for garbage should be 100% in pvp not the 50% half second speedbump it is now in pvp)

Agree 100%. Give the guardians some love soe....

Daal, yeah Guardians are such easy prey for ANY class. It is truely sad.

I would add ALL of the following to Hunker Down

• 10% increase to incoming heals
• 10% damage reduction (on top of your AA buffs)
• 10% chance to riposte any frontal attacks (attacks from other quadrants are parried)
• 5% chance to absorb an attack, can only trigger once every 5 seconds.
• Heals you for 2% of your max HP on any successful outgoing attack.

It sounds like a lot, but Guardians really need something to make them shine.

sounds good
or.. 5% chance to absorb an attack all the time.. not once every 5 seconds..

Yeah 5% is pretty low, so I guess it would have to be tested to see the true power.

Well the only grey area here is what is the best amount of % heal that should be attached to hunker down just kinda spitballing the %'s I suggested either way though its got to be a heal more so than only its % to healing received. While I commend the devs for looking to address the disparity of the guard versus the other tanks for pvp it shows a lack of understanding of the realitiesof the class in pvp. Any chance we can get a red text to comment on this proposal nothing fancy as I know they review these threads just a yes or no that this will be looked into.

Remember Hunker Down with AA lasts for 45 seconds. Though it still begins cool-down from its termination not activation. Going off suggestions if the absorb triggered every 5 seconds that is a total of 7 Stoneskins essentially during Hunker Down and heck wouldn't be overpowering for PvE too, it would just make Guardians that much more inclined to spec for the increased duration and imo the stoneskins would be a "rank 5' thing.

Sorry were talking PvP here not PvE. Back to subject. 10 seconds is too long a reset it would be no better than Reversal which atm is pathetically weak for Hate and is why DW is more attractive for Zerkers.

That's my direct feedback to your ideas, coming as a Guard who PVP's themselves form time to time. Though only BG as Estred is a Guk toon like my tag implies. Because of their low damage output they need consistent defense, more than any other tank to remain balanced in PvP. Currently Guardians are major thorns for an enemy group if and only if that Guard is coordinated with their healer, if not... then they are easy to kill.

Recent changes in game really seem to be focused on making tanks very reliant on healers to do pretty much anything. Heck the most powerful solo classes now are healers since the Mending/TankCrit-Heal nerfs from a year ago. I am not advocating that tanks be able to "100% take care of themselves" but in PvE and PvP one of the most fun aspects of this game... is a comeback. Surviving that 10-20 seconds without a healer to rez them or protect the dirge to rez them is amazing.

Even Raiding isn't about comebacks anymore, it's all about precision survival. The introduction to the Death-Limit actually being much lower is a pain... and off topic so I won't start.

Hmm okay fair enough... lets just toy with it and make it the uber buff. Like Harclaves buff... lol not quite, but anyways.

• 10% increase to incoming heals.
• 10% damage reduction (on top of your AA buffs).
• 10% chance to riposte any frontal attacks (attacks from other quadrants are parried).
• 10% chance to make the Guardian immune to stun and knockback effects for 10s.
• 5% chance to absorb an attack if the damage is greater than 10% of the Guardians health.
• 5% chance to reflect a physical attack if the damage is greater than 15% of the Guardians health, the reflected damage is reduced by 50%.
• Heals you for 5% of your max HP on any successful outgoing attack. (since you have no other heals besides your death save). Can only proc once every 2 seconds.

Nice changes. I am very much liking where this is going as a defensive package, my feedback is in blue.

My feedback in bold. I hope a dev will take the time to seriously consider these proposed changes for a class that has sad to say long been ignored in pvp survivability. Years ago the tools a guard has was more than able to give them a chance at a fight and albeit rarely beat a "3-4 button clsss" in pvp now even with these tools at our disposal we are nothing more than well geared target dummies.

Most of those ideas could be spread around to different buffs as well. Instead of making one uber buff.

Seriously though on my Assassin I view every single Guardian I see as a free update. That is sad, I should be scared of them, not the other way around.

To further that... on EVERY class I have I view Guardians as a free update. Against my Berserker a Guardian will NEVER win.

Guardians should have BY FAR the BEST mitigating abilities for physical attacks in the game. Their DPS is so low that this is completely justified. Heck I would even push for a "Crusaders Aura" for the Guardian, even if it only affects physical based attacks.

again.. we run into the issue with how this game's pvp is not balanced for group and solo play at once and creates situations were some classes jump from balanced to powerful depending on group make up.


what is being suggested is ok and all but you don't to make guardians invincible when they do have that good group because all that will happen is that all the cool kids will roll guards and use their premade.

what guard needs is a heal that is worthless if they have heals coming in and helps them survive a bit longer if they don't.

everyone will cry that guardians don't use heals and they are against the class or whatever but the sad fact is that if all the tanks heal in some way and this one doesn't you're only going to keep him at the bottom solo or overpower with a healer group.


give guards in pvp heals.. the problem is fixed.
could use some damage too but you don't want to have yet another T1 tank class in pvp that my assassin can't hit.

No one wants to overpower the class, the truth of the matter is EVERY other class in this game can kill a Guardian with relative ease in a 1v1. There is no other single class in the game in which that can be said about.

That is not balanced in the least.

i know. i have pvp'd a guard but you still don't want to make guard be unkillable with a group because the reason that my guard dies so much is because he can keep people on him with.

give guard a good heal. let mend work in combat or something else close to what zerk has but you can't give them too much damage reduction because sure it will be balanced one on one but then with a healer it will be totally out of wack.

did you ever get to play with weaklings as a guard? he could taunt lock almost as good as a zerk so if he had a healer anywhere near him it was impossible to kill him for a melee class.


totally agree that guard needs a heal.. but the damage reduction suggestions will never be high enough to really matter in solo game play but will be stupidity in group with a healer.

Yes i used to group often with Weaklings on Nagafen. He has always been a standout player. I guess I can see your point about damage reduction lending itself more towards group play.

In that case the 5% heal per successful attack could have its "can only proc once every 2 seconds" restriction removed.

Even given suggestions Guardians will not hit the DR "cap" which I believe is 70% DR. What this means is a well played Guardian will be feared, but catch him out of position or messing up and 'splat' dead Guardian. Most dps classes even against 22% DR can outdo 1.5K HPS. Basically like Healers in PvP; Guardians are now something that must be "focused" to properly take down IF they are well played.

The true balance of PvP lets the player control how effective a class is. With the suggested changes (yes perhaps spread apart to other abilities) this places the power in the player's hands to use the class well. Without a healer or some good dps, you still will not Fear a Guardian. This is what we want. We are meatshields, as such we rely on others to do our dps/healing for us. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be able to semi-heal ourselves (5% every 2 seconds works perfectly for this).

If the DR changes are not taken then yes, I agree with Xeos that "can only proc once every 2 seconds" can be removed or made 1 second. This just means that while this is active the Guardian would heal 5% per second which is still able to be DPS'd over. A heal like this must be tied to Hunker Down though as the Cooldown only starts on Skill-Termination. This means that you still can't "chain-self heal" as you have 35-50 seconds between Hunkers.