51 Guardian here. My opinion, for what it's worth: Our group buffs are sufficient. Our self buffs are sufficient. Our protection lines need serious work. Holding aggro is ok, though the root effect needs to be removed from Maddening Defense. It is an unnecessary penalty. The power drain is already high enough, and it only works when you are being hit. If I lose aggro, the odds are slim I will ever regain it. Losing aggro only occurs when another player generates more hate than me (via damage, healing, and/or taunting abilities). Regaining aggro is broken. This is due to my main taunt, Maddening Defense, no longer taunting because I am no longer being hit. My single target taunt, my AoE taunt, and my one taunting attack won't generate more hate than is being generated by whomever pulled the mob off me in the first place. Either increase the value of the 2 direct taunts, and/or the vengeful strike line, or add another Rescue type CA. Decrease the reuse timer on Rescue. Greatly increase our DPS when going DW or 2 Hander. I would settle for having our Offensive Stance only being able to be used when NOT having a shield equipped as the trade off, if our DPS in this mode was much much better than it is now. If tower Shields have the exact same block/mit/avoid values as kite shields, then remove them from the game (convert all existing ones to kite). No point in being hidden behind the garage door if it doesn't add anything to yer character. Please add variety to armor! My Cobalt armor looks EXACTLY the same as my old Magma Forged armor. The general atitude among the Guardians I know, and is one I share, goes pretty much like this: Situationally, any Fighter class can tank now. There are cases where a Crusader will be the best choice for MT, cases where a Brawler will, and cases where the Warrior will. OK, that's fine. Now, in which case will the Guardian be a better or equivalent DPS choice? In which case will a Guardian be a better or equivalent utility choice? In which case, other than some situational MT roles, will a Guardian be a better or equivalent choice for anything compared to the other Fighter classes? As far as I can tell, never. This is not balance. Message Edited by Bantel on 10-12-2005 04:36 PM
In bringing our class issues to the attention of the developers, I think it is important to stay focused and not beat dead horses. As far as the latter goes, asking to once more become the tank is simply not going to happen; SOE apparently wants to balance tanking (i.e., basic survivability vs incoming damage), so we will simply have to accept that leather-wearing bar brawlers are going to be the equivalent of the proverbial knight in shining armor. I think the issue we and SOE should be focusing on is figuring out what the new identity of guardians is supposed to be. We are the best at protecting our party, Moorgard said? Okay. How do we do that, though, if not thorugh superior survivability? As someone else pointed out, there isn't any better way of protecting your party, raid, or what have you, than by holding aggro, so let us focus on making that our class trademark: we should have the best aggro-locking tools as well as the best aggro recovery abilities. Currently, that isn't the case, as I elaborated at length on in my initial post in this thread. I won't repeat it here, simply point out what I, for one, would most like to see changed about my class. There are other, less important issues, but again, focus is important, so: First and foremost, as a special class bonus, make guardian taunts 100% irresistible, or at the very least much less resistible than they currently are. We must be able to generate hate at a steady rate, and since we don't have the DPS to ensure that, our taunts have to be made far more reliable. Secondly, drop the root component of the Maddening Defense line. If Maddening Defense were an ability which afforded a merely situational benefit, then a debuff component of some variety might be called for, but that isn't the case here: claiming that this buff line is situational would be nothing short of absurd; guardians simply aren't capable of holding aggro even remotely consistently without our reactive hate proc buff being in effect, so drop the root and leave the buff effect as a simple reactive hate proc. Also, let us not forget that brawlers don't suffer any kind of drawback to their hate proc buff, so why should we, the ostensible masters of aggro control. Thirdly, either bring back the original hate of our short-term mitigation buffs or give us a true AE taunt. Again, we are supposed to be the masters of aggro, in particular group and multi-encounter aggro, so give us the tools to be just that. Thank you.
I am a lvl 48 Guardian. I am here to say that I do not like the changes that were made to my chosen class and here is why: 1. I cannot tank effectively. - Mitigation is not effective. 2. I cannot hold aggro effectively. - Ineffective taunts and low dps. 3. I have little role to play in a group setting. - If I can't hold aggro and mitigate damage what use am I? Please don't gimme a list of utility spells. I have no mythical/fabled gear. Most of my gear is treasured or legendary where lucky. The last time I grouped with my guildies we went out and experienced some neat group content. During the whole crawl, I just couldn't hold/gain aggro. I spammed my adept 1 taunts on the mobs and I just flat couldn't get them to notice me. I literally tried every single ability I had and I could not hold/gain aggro. Even my rescue ability did not allow me to pull the aggro on a mob that was hit ONE TIME by a Swashbuckler. Even though I had been spamming and hitting that mob with taunt the entire fight. I felt really bad because I felt like I was holding my group back. I had fun because I liked what we were fighting and the zone we were in and I love my guildies, but I was slowing them down. Through several points throughout the night, a guildie monk gained aggro and tanked far more effectively than I. The monk was also 2 levels lower. I hold nothing against the monk, I think thats awesome. When I say "Tanked" here is what I mean. It seemed to me that the monk mitagated damage better or because of high agility got hit A LOT less often. While those to are completely opposite, are in the end exactly what makes a good tank. I think that Mitigation needs to be reworked. I think that if you take a same lvl monk with a same lvl guardian and whack them both with a +10 stick of nasty that they should take the same amount of damage. It's just that the guardians should be able to mitigate it and the monks avoid it. As far as the other fighters, I don't know. Our ranger seems to like what he can do and our swashbuckler does as well. Although from what I have seen I think that Swashbucklers could use a little boost in the mitigation department. BTW, guardians seem to solo ok. But if you could lower my dps even more and give me more mitigation to make me more valuable to a group, then I would happily take that. I didn't choose a guardian to solo. -Naladar Greylock
How about a utility spell called Master of Steel or something a little sexier sounding? This spell is cast on a group member, idealy the person who is playing MT. It lowers your defense and raises the targets avoidence a reasonable amount. The effect to you is that it would give you a chance to riposte an attack on that player there by increasing your dps / offense and increasing your targets overall defense. You would have to take other spell stacking issues into consideration but that sounds like a pretty good skill IMO. You may even have to make it positional so that you are in front of the mob at the time.
Wow.. fantastic posts here.. As a Guardian I can say that (IMO) all of the issues are out on the table.. My concern is when MG says guardians are fine. The devs do not see a problem with guardians.. I fear that if/when the devs read this thread (and others like it), it just gets shoved aside because they all feel Guardians are good to go and no need for improvement. Yea he said there could still be some tweaking here and there but I am 100% sure that does not include any of the issues brought up here. It is sad when I see the patch notes and nothing about Guardian changes. Really dissappointing. But then again, based on the schillacking we got Sept 13th, that may be a good thing. 3 pages of replies and nothing from the devs.. /shrug.. [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] frustrating thats for sure.. Message Edited by Trook on 10-13-2005 10:14 AM
I'm a ranger first and foremost, but I do have a guardian alt. Not a 50+ guardian, though, so I'll leave those details to the experts. This is just what I see as the role of the guardian, b/c it's one I really enjoy playing. (And since Briz is my MT, one that i've been benefitting from for 20+ levels.) A guardian should be a better endurance tank than any other class. They should be able to soak, resist, and mitigate extremely well. Aggro management should be a strength, but not necessarily 'better' than other fighers. The guardian is a protector, so they should make a significant difference in defending the rest of their party. It seems as though the existing skillset has the right ideas behind it, but just isn't being implemented sensibly right now - the damage intercepts are a good example. And while some extremely cool abilities should have a downside, it does seem as if guardians are punished for doing their jobs more often than most classes I know of. The roots, slows, and other detrimental effects just don't make much sense when you're only doing what your class is designed to do. As a ranger, I do have some compromises - most of my biggest attacks are conditional to some extent - but that's just part of the flavor of playing a ranger. I don't have to DoT myself to fire my bow or something silly like that. Those punishments need to be reexamined and/or removed altogether. Reward the guards for protecting their groups, don't punish them for it. I don't agree that a guardians should be able to "tank" better than any other fighter. Unfortunately the problem here is in game mechanics, not class balance. Other archetypes just have more room for subclass diffentiation. Mages, for example, get to have more diversity and less inter-subclass competition b/c there's so many ways a mage class can contribute - from DPS to power regen to crowd control - that you don't have illusionists competing with warlocks b/c their roles are so vastly different. Scouts are much the same way - predators get the most DPS, rogues get a balance of DPS and utility, and bards get fantastic utility. I don't compete with dirges even though we're both scouts, b/c their abilities are so different than mine. With fighters, you have nine different subclasses all trying to do the exact same thing in slightly different ways. "Tanking" is comprised mainly of aggro generation and retention as well as survivability - the fighters are the ones that are intended to take the damage and hold the mobs - and unfortunately there's not much room for flexibility given the current definition. All fighters should be able to taunt decently and survive decently, with slight adjustments for flavor. Monks may get less aggro-generating abilities to compensate for better DPS, for example. But we need to remember what the classes were designed to do; no fighter was intended to do significant DPS. Leave that to the mages and scouts. Focus on improving the guardian's ability to do what the guardian is intended to do - endurance tanking. Props to Raahl, Briz, and the rest of the guardians that are working for constructive changes to the class. Thanks to Raijinn for listening and helping facilitate the discussion. Good luck, folks.
The biggest problems I have encountered since the changes of LU#13 I have an ability that drains power, but truly it's uselss because it drains so little power, and now mobs hit hard enough to not even rely on power. On the other side of that coin I don't know how many times I pitted against a heroic or higher mob and it opens with a power drain that makes me useless, especially if there isn't any other tank in the group. Let's be fair here, if the mobs I'm fighting can one hit me for 50 to 75 percent of my power, then I should be able to do it right back to them. As far as I can tell there isn't any way to protect against a power hit.
Actually... I kind of like that Idea. Does anyone in the fighter community.. waves hand to Gaige. Have a problem with the Guardian having a power tap on par with the SK's life tap? Say hit for 2K at 50+ level?
First, let me say that I love the LU#13 changes to my other toons. LOVE 'em. On my guardian however, I now find him boring to play. I am very glad to see Moorgard's recent post that SOE is looking at the guardian class because I too feel like it needs some tweaking. Just a few ideas that I think would make my guardian more fun to play: 1. Add a group escape to Unyielding Will (the spell that heals us for a small amount if we die but explodes our heart 30 sec later). In other words, give guardians the ability to evac their group to safety if they sacrifice themselves to do it. It fits perfectly with the role of a guardian, to give their life when things go bad to save the rest of the group. 2. Either 1) remove the root from Maddening Defense, or 2) give guardians a really really long range pull spell. That way we would not have to keep toggling MD on and off for every single pull which is very annoying. 3. Change our damage intercept spells into wards. This would make them much more effective, useful, and fun to use as well as improve our ability to solo. The guardian's ward should be unique in some way though. For example, make them cost health to maintain or do a fixed amount of damage to the guardian if the ward is broken. 4. Give guardians a couple of debuffs. An attack slow and a mitigation debuff (similar to the hex doll debuffs) would be my choice. [/QUOTE]
A 2K powertap? Seems a bit much. You going to put that on a 15 min timer like harm touch is for SK's? How much of that 2k did you want to get back in return?
Thanks Prynn. Its kind of hard to do all those nasty things to the group when your running on fumes... hehehe. It would be a start.. but by no means a complete fix to our problem. Most epics seem to be a limitless pool of power. The spell would work like this IMO. Power tap for 2K of mob. Returns 10% to caster. This way if it hits on an epic there is an up side. Make it have the same re-use times as the Harmtouch. Creppie. A lot of SK's I know that are in their 50's are hitting for 2K or more on Harmtouch. Message Edited by Warbird1 on 10-13-2005 10:55 AM
Harm touch and lifetap are 2 entirely different things. One does magic damage, the other takes health from the mob and gives it to the SK. So the numbers don't really matter, whatever the SK gets in health the Guardian could get a comperable amount in Power.
Giving us a lot more damage over time, and power drains would be great. Also giving us forms of crowd control would rock as well.
Honestly, this gives me goose bumps! DPS + Power Tap utility would be enough to make me sign on again (as long as it wasn't a sissy power tap).
I like power taps.... Drain the mob's power, give us more health. That would be neat. Even a tap power for power would be great. Or a power tap that gave us more hate the more power it tapped.
Harmtouch yes, but you had said lifetap. I don't know any sk's that are hitting for 2k with lifetaps. Plus the reacast on lifetaps isn't 15 min, more like 15 - 30 seconds I think. I figured you ment harmtouch but I wanted to make sure :smileyvery-happy:
Well lets say this one would be. 15 minute recast around 2 K at level 52 plus or minus resists 10% return to caster at Adept 1 ??? sound good ?
Doesn't seem overpowerd to me. As long as mob power pools were high enough that it didn't trivialize encounters which I'm sure they are. I wouldn't want to see a guardian group "Wonder guardians activate!" and have them take out epics. Can you say old mana drain from EEQlive?
Non heroics... this will make them very soloable Heroics possibly soloable if they are one and 2 ups... no way for a 3 up of equal level.
