Make Guardian Moderate ability multitarget using concentration..

EverRude wrote:

And again further showing how much you don't understand. Adrenaline alone means that Zerkers would take half the damage of any other tank and would probably survive twice as long as both tanks in that situation. Or do we not consider using abilities? Because you are using SK lifetaps and you are using Guard temp buffs.

I actually agree with Bruener about the raid level difference. If there is a simular defence difference at raid level as my tanks have at heroic. That extra 10% avoidance and mitigation could make a difference. I just feel the SK's life taps cancel out most of the guard's advantage at heroic level.

Bruener did you even read the results I posted? You seem to be saying your raid test would prove the SK would take more damage than the Guard. My test showed the SK take a lot more damage than the guard. I posted the damage amounts noit just duration. The guard had better defence but the SK had better survivability due to his self healing.

I don't have a zerker at this level. I doubt my 43 zerk can tell me
anything about his capabilties at cap. If the adrenline you mentioned is
castable as often as Tap Veins then it would certainly be included. If it's a
3 min recast like Divine Aura or Guardian Sphere then no it would not
count. We all have abilties that can extend our survival on long recast.


The argument that this is just a solo test is bogus. I have used Tap Veins
to save myself plenty during heroic fights. The life taps reduce the
amount the healer has to heal. The guardian starts a fight with more hitpoints but the SK creates more hitpoints for himself on the fly while full on DPS'ng.

Stop talking to me like I'm a Guardian talking about SK. I'm an SK telling
you what I do in game, in groups, that make us superior to Guards. You
saying that the life taps only help in solo combat and I say that is BS. I
play SK everyday and I know better.

EverRude wrote:

Even more reason that the test is not accurate. So now we are throwing out abilities that have a recast longer than 3 mintues. That means that the Guard ability ToS can be counted. And yes Adrenaline has a recast time of less than 2 minutes which means that it in fact in your study could be used.
I guess than based on the study completed we can definitely say that Zerkers have the highest survivability out of all tanks. Oh wait, recast on monk Tsunami will be less than 3 minutes....I guess monks win.
Furthermore what is the definition of an AE fight? 2 or more means multiple mobs which is the argument on an entirely different thread saying there are way moer AE fights in TSO. Well a 2 mob encounter with a Guard using ToS is going to be a lot different than an 8 mob encounter with that ability. Vice versa a 2 mob encounter with AE lifetap healing on a 2 mob encounter for a SK is a lot different than an 8 mob encounter with those same lifetaps. Oh, and now we have to consider the level of the mobs too. An AE level 80 encounter with avoidance and mit difference is going to be a lot different than an AE level 85 encounter.
Can you see why there are so many holes in this example of using a solo surviving test in heroic content?

I edited the post you quoted apparently while you were posting. Sorry.
May wanna update or atleast read it again. Most of it was for you.


Now to address this new stuff you're complaining about. I said I only did
this test to show Atan survivabilty was an issue for guards more so than
SK in heroic AE encounters. My test was accurate enough to prove that.


Knitpick and run all the logic loops you want. Life taps make SK equal to
or better than Guards survivabilty in heroic fights. Atleast in AE heroic fights. And yes the more non-arrow or arrow down mobs the better for SK.


I apparently hit a sensitive spot for you. Sorry. I wasn't attacking sk's or
you. I just wanted to argue the point that guards needed to give up even
more survivabilty.

*added a clarifier about AE heroics

Btw I specifically state that I was leaving out the long recast skills due to the fact they are typically saved for named or "oh crap" situations. In addition I didn't want to have to wait even more time to do a run waiting for that recast stuff to refresh.

How about you go back and actually read the test post all the way through. You've now made several posts that clearly show you ignored several things I posted.

EverRude wrote:

Please define "long recast skills". Thanks.
Furthermore let me actually fix your hypothesis so your data supports it.
"Now to address this new stuff you're complaining about. I said I only did
this test to show Atan survivabilty was an issue for guards more so than
SK when solo in heroic AE encounters. My test was accurate enough to prove that. "

Bruener wrote:

No one is denying that a Guard actually takes less DMG thru an encounter. If you actually read his whole post you would see that yes in fact the SK took more DMG..........yet lasted longer.
Surviveability comparisons especially at the heroic level cannot be simply looked at from a hit per hit basis. You have to look at the entire encounter and then the entire instance run. We can do what you say........compare actual groups with healers....one with Guard the other with SK........take them into any instance and when its all said and done.......something like ACT will show that yep the Guard takes slightly less DMG ..........yet the healers total amount bealed for the run would be higher....and I total DMG taken by the group as a whole would be much higher than with the SK. And I think we all know what the comparison between # of rezes would show =P
This actually carries on thru early tiers of raiding. I know that a WOE run tanked by a Guard -vs- an SK will show the same type of results.......SK = less total healing by the healers, less overall DMG taken by the raid.

While it may be that in terms of raiding that the two factors you use to evaluate Balance......Surviveability and Aggro/DPS have equal weight so actual balance can be done.......they do not have equal weight at the heroic level....Aggro and DPS take on a much higher importance while surviveability means less and less. You cant use the same equation to balance.
Group moderate would help things somewhat but the scales would still be out of whack. Guards would still need some boosts to AGGRO to make things as balanced at heroic level as they apparantly are for raids.
The problem is that in EQ2 currently AGGRO and DPS are not the independent variables they should be they are in fact the same thing......so you cant boost Guard aggro without also boosting their DPS.

Bruener wrote:

Funny. Riddle me this...
If we put the healer with these guys "soloing" these mobs what will that prove? You can see with my current test how much damage they take compared to one another. My way also compares how long they survive. Your way wouldn't appear to prove anything but you would manage to take survival out of the equation. Unless you want to try to run the healer OOM and get them both killed.
Also the more other variables I add the the test the more it adds the potential of skewing the results.
And I defined long recast in m y first test post. Anything that can't be used on every fight for a normal group running a good pace through a shard zone. That would be pretty much anything that takes longer than 1 min to recast.

EverRude wrote:

if you can try running both toons through a group with the exsact same group setup,something effectivly mid teir (veksar would be good) and list the act parse for amount healed.

therodge wrote:

And I still question what it could possibly prove that we don't already know? Yes the SK takes more damage.
Do you guys think the SK's self healing stops when a real healer is in the group? SK will gain some of his own hitpoints back as he fights. It's what he does. It's what makes him a SK.
I guess I derailed my own thread better than anyone else could by answering that call to parse pulls on an AE fight and see what difference the SK life taps really have. That's what I did. I'm not interested in going further with this.
I can't win the test debate. Not going to sway voters my way. Not going to debate my way to clear victory. It's a waste to try. I've made my points. Proven them in several post.
The guardian survivability in heroic content is overrated. Guards shouldn't need to give up anything to get something like Group Moderate.
Group moderate in some form will not OP the Guardian class if it's well thought out. Will not have any effect on raid. It doesn't effect AE or DPS for the guard in any real way. Group moderate could give the guardian flexibility when creating groups. That's all I'm asking for.

I would also be in favor of making Moderate usable on more than one person at a time but make it use a con slot for each. Groupies with this buff on them dont rip off me nearly as bad, even high dps classes.

Xethren@Antonia Bayle wrote:

So you'ed still have it on one person as we only have 1 free con slot.. I guess you could drop some other buffs but not a good idea..

EverRude wrote:

You actually go a long way to proving my point though. Due to the aoe lifetaps the SK, an aoe tank has equal survivability to the guard in aoe content. If you parse the same tests via a high con single target encounter, you'll see the sk's survivability drops and the guards goes up.
Now, in both cases above, a single healer, any healer would have kept up with the inc dps easily. What is left to differentiate them is only aggro control. And while the healer could easily keep them both up, only one will maintain sufficient aggro on the encounter(s).
I still contend an aoe hate proc on getting hit or blocking for the guard will serve to overcome the bonus hate the sk is getting in raw aoe dps output. I still strongly believe this is a better solution than group moderate or multi-target moderate.
As you can see from your own testing, the guard parses a level of incoming dps that is trivial to overcome, if he could generate full aoe aggro in that defensive build, he'd be overpowered to the SK in tanking aoe content. However, if he needs to drop his shield in order to proc more aoe threat, things begin to ballance out.
I think the SK should always be better at aoe content (dps and survivability due to aoe lifetap), however the guard should be given the tools to do their basic role in heroic content effectively (keep mobs pointed at the tank).

Atan you posted this before...
"To gain aoe aggro, we should sacrafice survivability.
Otherwise, we'd be grossly OP."
Then later...
"Now, if I have the aggro issue solved and I can keep them on me AND I get to keep my significantly higher survivability than my sk, I've just created a grossly OP class. If however, I sacrafice my survivability bonuses and actualy become lesss survivable to gain aoe hate, I feel we're talking about a much more balanced approach.
The SK still wins out in AOE dps, he wins out at higher survivability vs aoe encounters, but the guardian is provided a reasonable risk/reward tradeoff to not be useless in aoe encounters.
Fact is, if you make a guard able to hold aggro in all scenarios, they become nearly defacto the best tank class, and I would never make such a suggestion as 'balancing' any class."
I completely agree with this. But...
The guard's "significantly higher survivabilty" doesn't exist in AE content even when he's in defensive mode. That the guardian is already sacrifising survivabilty. Look lower in the post for the results in dps gear (dual weilding) and offencive stance. Much lower survivabilty than the SK. Put my guard in O stance and dual weilding he survives less than half the time the SK can.
Had my test showed the guard stay alive as long or longer than the SK in the AE fight then I could agree with sacrising more defensive bonuses to gain some measure of control. But the SK already has the survibility, the dps, and the control. Why should we sacrifice even more when the SK already has the edge on AE in every category?
And besides I"m not even talking AoE for the group moderate. Right now we can't hold aggro on anything unless we build the perfect group. That's the purpose of this post. This thread. All the AoE stuff is a side track. All the focus on SK vs Zerk vs Pally vs Us is derailing.
I let myself be taken that way merely to try and debunk the idea that Guards are the best at survivabilty. In certain situations he can be. But in EVERY situation the guardian struggles to hold aggro against dps classes without the perfect group. We have no flexibility in heroic content and we get no advantage to compensate for it. This is my complaint.

Back on topic........i hope

Given my experience trying to effectively play a Guard for mostly Heroic content and low-mid tier raiding there are two things that I believe would turn what is now pure frustration into something still challenging yet fun.

1) Group moderate...make it via AA for all I care. We have so many wasted AA points in the Guardian EOF tree and there is already and AA that boosts Moderate so that would be a good place. Guardian RP/Lorewise this actually makes sense.
2) Hold The Line: make it proc PBAE, increase the threat amount 2-3x....then perhaps some AA ability that adds a additional threat DOT component to the proc.
None of that would mean a damn thing at the upper end of raiding because things like Moderate and HTL don't even play a roll. MTs for top end raiding don't rely on those things to do their job.

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

The increase to Hold the Line would be vastly OP'd. It would basically become a HUGE Mutagenic Burst spell. To give you an idea on an AE fight Mutagenic Burst can do 1k+ DPS. So now you want to have basically a copy of that that is bigger and can be increased even more and procs even more often. Not to mention that with the Taunt Crit mechanic going in it would probably be even larger. Seems vastly OP'd to me.
Instead yeah I agree that the threat amount could use an increase of 2-3x. Than possibly some type of additional hate increase thru AAs. But making it a PBAoE each time it procs is overboard.

Bruener wrote:

HTL does not proc DMG.
If HTL proced DMG I would agree but we are talking just +threat and its only a 50% chance to proc when hit. A full burn Warlock or SK or stupid Assassin not assisting would still rip aggro with ease from a Guard.

After listening to all of the arguments on the previous 11 pages, I think I fall into the group moderate and buffing up HTL camp.
Group moderate - I have played my guard since just after launch and have only (few exceptions) done heroic content with him. I had a built in group consisting of my guard, a templar, a swashy, and a wizzie. With moderate on the wizzie and the Swashy transfer, aggro management was fine (never bucklered spec since I never had the best gear). I had rescue and reinforcement ready for those times when we picked up an add, I had to hunker down, or I saw the wizzie's fusion macro. Now I have 6/7 T3 pieces on him (thanks to my dirge) Mythed and Ekron's Blade for an offhand. Guess what, virtually anyone in my group that isn't moderated will pull agg off me and at times even the ones that do unless I have 2 out of 3 of the needed classes (even then i'm using my snaps way too often). Basically unless i'm rolling with dirge, coercer, and assassin/swashbuckler, I feel like a failure and I don't have the time to wait for that set up basically ever. Group Mod would be a great step in the right direction.
Buffing HTL: Personally I'm for either making it a PBAoE and not change the values, or increasing the taunt amounts by 3-4x what they are now. I say no to sacrificing anything for this also. HTL has always been (or at least was) our equalizer when it came to AOE encounters. It gave guards that extra bit of hate needed to handle mutiple targets without boosting our dps, where the other plate tanks had more AOE DPS therefore more AOE hate. It used to be situational, now it is essential for single targets (which is less concerning now than it used to be since I have to bring a coercer anyhow.)
Seriously, with survivorability being pretty much equal and dps being quite different, who really thinks that implimenting both of these are going to make guards crazily OPed??? Everyone now realizes that crusaders and zerkers are great options as tanks and to a lesser extent brawlers (sorry guys), who can say with a straight face that a group that is ready to roll and just needs a tank is going to hold out for a guard over any other plate class if these get implimented. I can tell you one thing, right now the opposite happens daily.

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

Its amazing that you can't see how OP'd that would be. That single ability would put out more AE hate than any other plate tank. You take an encounter like FG and you are talking like 8 mobs each hitting you. Every other time they hit you you are talking about 8 targets for the hate from HTL. So, taking a look at the spell right now it has a 50% chance to proc like 600 hate when any opponent damages the Guard.
Now you want this to be like 3x as much hate....that makes it 1800 hate every other time a mob damages you.
You also want this to be a PBAoE.
8 mobs on you......you are going to proc that thing like 4x a second. 4 times 1800 equals 7200 hate per mob per second. 8 mobs and you are talking about 57600 hate per second.
Oh now lets do a room pull and see what happens. So we get 16 mobs. That thing is going to proc like 8x a second. 8 times 1800 equals 14400 hate for each mob around you in a PBAoE. 16 mobs and you are talking about 230400 hate per second.
Yeah, lets just make Guards the de facto tank for everything.....go to a zone like EH and pull the whole floor, afk for 10 minutes and come back when raid is finished killing the mobs.
This idea is extremely over-powered and that is before even introducing the taunt crit mechanic.