This is a guardian thread and after just a brief glance i can tell that it has turned into a mixed squabble, again. I have played my guardian since 2005 and have played at every possible level this game has to offer. From being MT/OT in avatar killing guilds to a casual raider to logging in to just to be afk at the broker. I have never played any other class. I may be rightly shot down on commenting on other classes but i think i have earned enough experience as a guardian to know a thing or two about them. I am not going to go through the class history but just to highlight the hi and lows of it. From late EoF to early TSO guardians were really the best MT going around, i mean we owned RoK. Then TSO happened and it was Christmass holidays for crusaders. Then some tweaks here and there around SF to restore balance. Late to mid DoV, brawlers who were ignored for a long time got some deserved attention eventually to put them on top of the tanking list. That said, any guardian worth his salt shone brightly during the dark days so i am not saying that guardians were drop dead useless. I played during those times and easily MT'd in raids with not many problems. At the end of the day its all about your willingness to hang in there and show what a guard can do in the capable hands. Now here we are 9 years down the line talking about the same old problem. Tank balance. Frankly i could not give two hoots about what other tanks are doing because i don't play them. Now, i am concerned about my own class and that is the Guardians. Anybody who thinks that guardians are by far the best defensive tanks in game needs to just delete their tune. Yes i would love to be just that but the gap between us and other tanks with respect to defensive capabilities is very thin, so thin in fact that you really need to take a deep dive in to the classes to differentiate sometimes. Guardians by definition should have been the best single target defensive tanks in the game. Which we are not these days. I would perfectly be happy that our dps is the lowest of all tank classes. What i want is that guardians to have the best survivability of any tank class. We should take a beating like no other class can while at the same time hold aggro on one target like no other. This is not true by a large scale. Other tanks can do just as well and they have added bonus of outparsing guards in single and ae encounters. If you disagree then 1 of 2 things apply: Either you don't know your class well (assuming you tank) or you don't play a tank. I have no problem to be in turtle mode all the time as long as i know that being defensive is my strength. Guards have no problem in heroic zones because lets face it, mobs don't last long enough for them to be a problem and if any guards do have problems then you need to spend more time tanking and gearing your guard to be more effective in those zone. In raids, the situation is very different. I personally have no problem with single or ae encounters and if im in a setup of my liking with players who know what they are doing then its all good but some things still nag me. The game nowadays is all about dps. I see other tanks survive just as well i do plus they outparse me to the extent where i start to think that what am i really giving to the raid anyway? Yes we can talk about group/raid buffs but thats not the point, we share some of our class defining abilities with our "evil" aligned counterparts. That furthers improves our case to have something unique. What i am saying is that, all other tank classes would have something to say about us and frankly i see no reason why any other tank class needs to be here and voice his/her concern. I seriously have never felt the need to go in to other tank threads to say "hey you're op and we are not". Makes no sense. Stick to the class you play. It makes not difference to me that tomorrow Sks start parsing 3 million dps and Monks become immune to all damage for 5 minutes. Good for them i would say. I just want my class to perform to its intended function which we have not for a long time. I cannot speak for every guardian out there but those who have played a guard long enough would agree to some extent that we don't care about dps. Give us the tools that makes us stand in a department where no other tank class can come close to. If dps is not gonna increase then fine improve our hate gain passively to a degree where we can auto attack a target and hold aggro. Sure the raid kills the target with no aggro problems and we end up lower than the healers pets in the parse but we did what we were supposed to do. Stay alive and hold one target like no other. To sum up or allow people to skip my rant thus far, Guardians --Make us the best defensive tank class in the game, we don't care about dps. Of course that would require some major changes to the game mechanics which i see not happening anytime soon or most likely, ever. SOE please stop breaking another class to fix another. You don't do us any favours and at the same time you are not adding to your dwindling friends list by doing so.
Too much text to quote but well said. Tanks are fairly well balanced but there are some major discrepancies still. I do hate how everything really is just DPS-Checks now it makes fights mundane and really Guards don't give a rats about DPS. The only time I do is if I as the MT in Defense outparse our bards/enchanters.
I've never played a Guardian but I do have a Beserker and Bruiser at cap. From my perspective I do not play either of them to do DPS, that's what my main (ranger) is for. I play them to hold aggro so the rest of the group can kill it without getting hit. The "evil twin" of the guardian is in the same boat as you. Their dps may be a bit higher but as they don't have your class defining buffs and hate transfer they have to rely on dps to keep aggro. My bruiser is the same, no hate transfer, just a few CAs that add extra hate and that's it. While I agree the brawlers are better at avoiding damage, keeping aggro is still a problem. (1 ST snap and 1 AE snap). Beserkers without the right support are also troublesome although I find it easier due to the amount of snaps (3 single, 2AE from memory). But survivability on a zerker is pretty tough at times, low HP, useless death saves and not much else. What I'm trying to say is it's not just guardians that have issues. I think both warriors have problems and I also don't think brawlers are perfect. As dps classes get higher and higher it becomes harder to hold aggro. It's no wonder every tank wants a dirge in the group. I won't comment or compare with crusaders as I have no idea of their abilities.
I think the biggest problem is that its to late to move away from the DPS check right now. Tbh i play a zerk and i dont care one bit of what numbers im putting out on mobs that matters. EM stuff well then its fun to put out some dps aye. There are plenty of fights tho when guardians tools are pretty good tho. Really i think the only thing they could do to make them abit more fun and feel more needed with out screwing up tank blance again is to give them a dps boost. If they boost guardian surviveability even more they need to make the mobs hit harder in order to make that usefull and then we will just end up with the same thing we have had up to TsO. Tbh i think the biggest problem is that monks are pretty close to guards when it comes to surviveability. And they do amazing dps and have some of the best utility for dps out of any tank. All tho i think you are wrong when you say guards is not the most defensiv tank. As they are atm. Not by alot vs some tanks but still. If speced that way. Its not 100% needed on some fights tho. Anyways a damage proc with high proc rate would probly fix alot of the down fall on the guardian class.
I disagree with you netty. I think the guardians biggest problem are We have no sustaining heal. We have huge cool down that heals and thats about it. Second with the amount and multi attack / ae attack mobs do today, the stone skins don't last hardly any time.
Why do you want a heal? I would trade you all my heals for some better working defensiv tools like Spheres, Defensiv minded and so on. Heals work nice when you solo. So i wouldent say its the biggest problem for guardian as mercs can easy do that aswell. Give them a heal tomorrow and you would still be in the same boat you are in now. About stone skins. Well they are not really ment to be used all the time so. I feel guards have plenty of other defensiv tools to keep pushing. All tho getting the myth buff proc back to 10% physical damage reduction would be nice. As it was nerfed in the past when the myth was giving so much uncontested avoidance.
TBH many of the same opins here were brought up repeatedly in the class fix feedback (though tbh I feel the fix is going to be alot less that what everyone expects)...hopefully they will (but hardly ever) listen to the majority of feedback issues/suggestions on all classes most of which were not the typical ..."oh lets add this" without any thoughtout reason behind the suggestions.
Yes we have many tools to keep us pushing but i stand firm on my initial point. Those abilities do not make us stand out like they ought to. We do not want heals. Last man standing, tower of stone, sphere even block are all really good but when was the last time people paid attention to mob hit rates or more specifically, their ability to multi-attack like there is no tomorrow? The damage absorption in raids, sometimes, i have actually noticed last a few seconds because 3 or 7 absorption disappear in a quick succession. Last man standing, if judged based on its name, would just be a joke. I would rather take absorption based on duration of buff rather then it being restricted to a number of absorptions. However, before someone counters this with "that's overpowering the class" rant, this does not have to be class breaking if done properly. Other tank classes already have the dps advantage over us which most raid guardians are ok with or perhaps just given up hope on that matter, so this will not be an added advantage. Mythical proc? It has been a joke since they removed the shield restriction/buckler advantage from it in my own opinion. Also, how many charms and runes have that effect in some form these days? i wonder if i start counting i could probably reach a double figure. Guardians are the best defensive tank class in game? Yes if you are willing to accept that is based primarily on very low dps output and a lot of group/raid beneficial spells overall and not enough class defining skills that makes guards, on their own, a force to be reckon with. In conclusion, we do not care about dps if you are not going to give us that, give us hate generation based on passive hate gain and taunts (if i may dare) and adjust them in a way that our lack of dps does not become detrimental to our ability to sustain hate on a target. Yes a single target. If i want an ae tank then we can roll a zerk/sk or even a bruiser. I hate the fact that i need to reforge stats to get more AE auto attack. I am absolutely fine with the INT line to get some ae attack and that is all it should ever be for a guard. We are not AE tanks! In terms of our defensive capabilities, i want the best defense for a tank class against a single target in the game. Period. You can either do that by improve our existing abilities or give us a new one, don't care. Its your job as developers to come up with hows and not the people who pay to play.
Guards as one of the 3 Defensive tanks need to be able to be about as defensive as the other 2 Defensive tanks. These 3 would naturally be Guard, Monk, and Pally. These 3 do Defensive tanks differently then the others. I am very interested to see what changes they do to the tanks be help this balance. Just a few things that I think needs to be done. -Dragonfire I don’t think should be effected be Spell DA… we are Brawlers nothing we do should be effected by Spell DA. (this one I know has nothing to do with this thread, but I play a monk) -Guards needs more in the way of dps from CA’s. Zerkers are the AoE Warrior, Guards are the SF Warrior. Guards should be able to do around as much ST DPS as a monk we are the ST Brawlers. Guards, Monks and Pally’s are about as good defensively but guards lack on dps and this would help. -I don’t know if they need anything else, I raid with a guard and he does fine normally. I don’t think Guards need to be Significantly more Defensive then the other 2 Defensive tanks, that would just get the devs making fights around the added survivability of the guard and no other tank in game would be able to tank it. I am cannot wait to see the changes coming with GU 66.
I never said that we are not fine, all i am saying is that we do not have any particular strength where we can actually say yes that is what a guardian can do unlike all the other tanks.I play a guard full time and have gotten so used to it that i don't feel any different anymore but since people make it a point to say things about them i feel that its my right to correct them, especially those people who do not play guardians at the top level right now and apparently have a lot to say.
Oddly enough I haven't had this issue come up when I tank. The only problem I have at times is holding hate. I do play guardian about full time myself, and untill recent changes with my raid group, didn't do to bad a job of tanking as a guardian. Still the only problem I been running in to it of late is this. "Sorry your not properly geared, we don't want you for our tank." This is a common raider mentality which to me is not right as they use it as a excuse to keep folks out of there groups, even in older raid content like say currently ToFSx2, or even CoE heroics. Now I been able to tank both even before I got my current gear, and effectively as well. So I don't get why folks tend to restrict others like that other then your not in there little club.
Thread about Guardian issues and you're talking about how ppl dont let you tank because of your gear. Again, did you read the thread?
Someone good at playing a guard would more than make up for having poor gear. You are given all the tools needed to mitigate all spike damage that comes at you. Providing you understand the class, game mechanics, and useful caps, you should be able to reforge and adorn even the most average gear into something workable. There is very little content I couldnt MT in steward armor and some MC jewelery. The primary handicap being missing some useful red adorns for the hardest content.
Have you tried tanking Amalgamon in Stewards Gear? It really, really hurts Edit: I still agree with your point, but I had to rib ya a bit
Guardian Taunting Assault now has a 0.5 second cast time. Sentinel is now a small chance to trigger a stoneskin on the target when taking physical damage. The stoneskin only absorbs physical damage and lasts for ten seconds. I guess xelgad decided guards are already fun... no worries, I'm over it. He seems to be accomplishing his goal though... there are no balance adjustments outside of pvp, they are all "fun" adjustments. Guards can now use 2 abilities that most never used, so I guess you can call that a success. And this of course according to beta which can change. I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they see the update notes compared to what they are expecting (no balance adjustments, some classes get no changes, etc). http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/beta-update-notes-tuesday-april-2-2013.6044/
True......but based on experience we can take them as a indication of "theme" which from what i have seen thus far seems to be one of "underwhelming".
Agreed everything so far has been primarily PvP oriented and that game is only interesting in small spurts.
