I startet playing this game again on 10/2021 and now i updated my berserker and i must say, i dont know why they bring in this stupid "bullwark". Never had something stupid in a game. As i know they have problems or a bug with the block value and avoid so they should make tanks attractive and not in the way to tank, heal and make damage. Tanks are Tanks and no DPS or Healer!!
Bulwark is the love child of melee mitigation being broken in response to the hew & cry of the golden children that it was unfair plate mitigated physical damage better than chain and leather and cloth. Now, for some unclean reason, plate tanks have the lowest mitigation ratings. GO FIGURE. - As a result of said breakage, suddenly groups were running without tanks, pew-pewing their way through zones. The developers answer was Bulwark, instead of fixing the inversion of mitigation which brought about the problem in the first place. Affection in advance to 'the Ignored' who will certainly jump in . Be Well!
I don't care for the bulwark mechanic, never have. Seems silly to me have given tanks yet another they have to worry about and it still fails at times.
Broke down and tanked for a group this week (h1/h2) and I will say if it weren't for all of the agro locks a guard gets, I'd been pretty much worthless... That being said, I was also well under geared (I was only T1 resolve to their t3/4 gear) for the group and I had two dpsers who were high end.
Any zone is doable by any tank if you have high dpe'ers in the group. Also I am assuming you knew the zones from your main. I think you meant Snaps not aggro locks If stuff dies fast enough, I don't really overly worry about holding aggro.
nah, was referring to the agro locks, the ones where you lock the target to you regardless of your threat with it. Plant, Warrors cry, irresistible force abilities. And it was true, on most of the mobs that wasn't a problem, though on the first one in Crag and the last in Caverns where I needed to hold agro due to scripting, was... interesting. And I don't think I could of done those (at my current gear level/stats) with anything other than a Guard due to those agro locks, which I used judiciously during the Vorgian (sp) fight
Well, I tend to think of all those as snaps - but then I have playing a guardian for 17 years. For me, if cast the CA on a mob on that is not on me and then it is - then it is a snap But I get your point on the difference Feel free to look up Rhita, Taled or me (Avenn) for AA ideas.
I too had been wondering what you meant by "snaps", though I guessed it was the instant aggro-grabbers, so thank you both for clearing that up. (And yes I too am fairly new to the class, which is to say, I have been playing my guard at the lower levels for a while, but only recently leveled her up, so thankyou also for the AA suggestions).
Yah, the main difference for me on a snap vs a agro lock is, a snap actually puts me at the top of the agro list, a lock just locks it to me regardless of my agro position (so Rescue vs Warrior Cry). I'll take a look at those aa builds to see if I'm way out of whack. Thanks!
General term - Snap Anything. Snap Heals. Snap agro. Snap mez, etc. Reading more into the term is localized customization, and does not translate well game wide. It is a very general term. Parsing the fine points of what a general term specifically means to (you, me, us, them) is a game that is not worth the candle.
Your effectiveness on the guardian would be heavily reliant on the stats you have. Focus on going as high as possible on potency and fervor first will take the edge off considerably. There was once a time where you could hold aggro with passive/active hate abilities, CA damage and transfers without having to use snaps often on the guard but those days are long gone. Your best bet of establishing aggro in a fight is within a few seconds of the fight starting, if you did not maintain aggro during this time then you would be struggling for a while with snaps being on the cooldown and hoping your reset RNG triggers for you. Guards can seriously spike high for a few seconds so make the most of it. My usual rotation of the following puts me really high on dps and threat so for the most part I do not have to resort to using snaps later on in the fight unless there is a scripted change in the fight or death. The only snap is within the first 5 seconds of the pull. You really must have irresistible force at Ancient by default by now. This of course is raids, in heroics things die quickly so you don't need worry about it too much. stay in focused offensive, Feedback loop/touch of magic +experienced insight > Irresistible force > menace > vital trigger > provoke/shout > dissociating limbs > mana schism > use guard sphere to reset dissociating limbs and then spam DL as many times as it refreshes. Remember to use executioner's wrath and shout to boost cb during this time. Use acceleration strike to reset experienced insight (its not 100% reset). If resets works in your favor then this combo should keep experienced insight up for most of the time. You should have champion's interception up to 50 increments by now so you can use this for increase in threat as well. Then fill in with decimate/sentinel strike/lay waste and rest of single target CAs with provoke and shout being used whenever they are up. After this initial burst of dps, you will then fall down dramatically on dps but you should have enough aggro to fall back into the routine of CAs with snaps being saved for the aggro rips from the pesky BLs, rangers, wizzies and pretty much any other annoying class. In raids with long pulls (20 mins+), my top most threat output comes from Champion's Interception then Experienced insight then hold the line squeezed between provoke and shout. In AE pulls which are majority of the time trash, i really don't bother except that i come out of focused offensive, use experienced insight, reinforcement with plant then partisan cleave/assault/shout and use recapture to dump hate on other fighters. In heroics, it could be fun (like first named in Suite of Screams) when grouped with trash talkers, room pull with named, feedback loop, cleave/assault/shout, if your overall group dps is high, the trash talkers are usually speechless at the end of the fight and when they look at the parse.
yah, the group I was running with had 2 t1 dps (ranger and beastlord) that are way over geared to me and put out 1-2T in raids... honestly, there was little hope for me to hold agro, just had to on a few fights for scripting. It was certainly fun as I've not played the Guard long... but other than a Pally, which I've been burnt on too many times now, it is the only other tank I enjoy the style of (I've tried Zerker, SK and Monk...) But I will certainly look over the info, though some of it won't work for me unless I change my ascension class, as I started down the geomancer (I know) line...
