Class Update - Guardians

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Originally Posted by Grimlir83

That's sophistic. What kind of survavibility could be warrior's heart in a AoM raid (in red) ?

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It's a full health heal, kinda ensures survival in a situation that would kill pretty much any other DPS (barring red Warden I guess). Remove the heal for a brief DPS buff cooldown in red and it could be pretty neat.

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Originally Posted by Grimlir83

Folks should understand that the main problem with the red guardian is NOT to have similar DPS than hunter for example. It's to be viable in solo DPS for the lanscape (and with warrior's heart there's no invicibility at all if you pull too much NPCs in beta 4). The purpose is not to work for a little minority even among the raiders, and in this point of view a little less DPS than in build 4 is not a problem. This point of view in order to rework the red guardian has been retained, so trying to put it in another direction is out of subject.

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Vastin said it wasn't the explicit intent of these changes to offer a group competitive DPS line. That doesn't even remotely rule out that they are willing to do that (and pretty much have done that), it just means that they weren't initially trying to produce that result. From here what actually marks more sense? Nerfing survival skills slightly to create a fairly balanced competitive group DPSer or nerf DPS and just get a mediocre line that will stick to landscape alone?

It's tiring that people keep insisting on making the nonsensical "But it's a guardian, it shouldn't be able to compete for DPS" argument. Who cares who competes so long as everyone can compete. I'd rather the game let me choose which traitline I could play rather than effectively forcing me to play a class I hate for a role I like.

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Originally Posted by Seodric

Well, pretty sure we're talking about survivability when you cross-trait (Bring on the Pain ranks on Thrill of Danger in yellow for example), which makes survivability silly in moors/landscape with red grd. Having this much dps and crazy survivabilty at the same time is overkill (same with red warden having access to lots of heals etc in red, blood arrow heal for hunter etc, which also should be nerfed, since dps is now so high).

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True, which is why I firmly believe that reducing the overall amount of trait points down to ~67-72 would benefit the game greatly. It would put constraints on the amount of defensive abilities/healing abilities/CC abilities that DPS specs have access to.

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Originally Posted by Joedangod

It's tiring that people keep insisting on making the nonsensical "But it's a guardian, it shouldn't be able to compete for DPS" argument. Who cares who competes so long as everyone can compete. I'd rather the game let me choose which traitline I could play rather than effectively forcing me to play a class I hate for a role I like.

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QFT. I've heard this from too many people, and I've asked too many times "Give me one reason why guardians shouldn't have a viable DPS spec?", without getting an answer. And no, "guardians are a tank class" isn't an answer.

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Originally Posted by Giliodor

True, which is why I firmly believe that reducing the overall amount of trait points down to ~67-72 would benefit the game greatly. It would put constraints on the amount of defensive abilities/healing abilities/CC abilities that DPS specs have access to.

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It'd be nice but unfortunately people would push back way too much to ever let it happen. The best we can really hope for is for them to make an extra tier on the trait trees and start moving a few of the core skills of each line to be setbonuses of that line rather than available cross-traits.

You naughty boys leave catch a breath out of the discussion on purpose or you still haven't figured out how strong it is ^^
Ow well , it certainly feels refreshing after having a 2k heal for years : )

PS. Vastin must have fixed the cooldown bug with warchant , big thanks for that ; )

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Originally Posted by BotLike

You naughty boys leave catch a breath out of the discussion on purpose or you still haven't figured out how strong it is ^^
Ow well , it certainly feels refreshing after having a 2k heal for years : )

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It's semi in line with self-motivation and blood arrow, figured nerfing the other available defence abilities was a better call.

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Originally Posted by Joedangod

It's tiring that people keep insisting on making the nonsensical "But it's a guardian, it shouldn't be able to compete for DPS" argument.

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Ans it's tiring that people keep insisting on making the nonsensical "But I Want to play as roles as I want with one classe in raid, even if a very few minority of guardians is interested by that" argument.
LOTRO is not TESO.

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Originally Posted by Joedangod

It's semi in line with self-motivation and blood arrow, figured nerfing the other available defence abilities was a better call.

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Fair enough , although cooldown wise its now stronger than warrior's heart and defo better than thrill , although for the latter i'd exclude multi trash fights and pvmp.

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Originally Posted by Grimlir83

Ans it's tiring that people keep insisting on making the nonsensical "But I Want to play as roles as I want with one classe in raid, even if a very few minority of guardians is interested by that" argument.

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Yes, how very nonsensical it is for people to want to play what they like in raids rather than being roped into playing the few traitlines that work.

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Originally Posted by Grimlir83

Ans it's tiring that people keep insisting on making the nonsensical "But I Want to play as roles as I want with one classe in raid, even if a very few minority of guardians is interested by that" argument.

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So here is why you are right.

I got this right off the class descriptions on the LOTRO website itself:

"Tough and enduring, Guardians use their well practiced shield and weapon against any who seek to harm their allies. By the clang of sword upon shield, or the roar of battle cries, Guardians live to provoke opponents and divert potential damage from their allies. When fighting on their own, these masters of protection and heavy armour are like distance runners—winning through a well paced stamina of defense and offence abilities. When grouped with allies, Guardians focus on defense, defense, defense; no matter the direction of battle, whether victory or defeat, Guardians hold their ground until the last moment."


The only mention of offence is this:
"well paced stamina of defense and offence abilities"

Definition of stamina: the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.

So stamina of offense capabilities would mean sustained physical effort applied to offense meaning it takes time for a Guard to kill anything.
This is why people naturally think a Guard doesn't and shouldn't have a high dps traitline. It doesn't jive with the class description. Taking away their stamina in exchange for higher dps might seem fair from a class balance perspective, but it destroys the very nature of the class as defined by those who originally envisoned the class. So its rewriting the class description which from a product advertisement standpoint is false advertising.

Blue and yellow line work, and now with build 3 and build 4 red line work. Even if Vastin choose build 3, build 4 with less survivability or an average of the two builds, it will be playable and it's the fundamental purpose : red guard will be more intesting whatever final choice will be made. This won't be a cause of drama. But it's good to take care of another points of view about one class sometimes, and to accept compromises, you see.

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Originally Posted by Grimlir83

Blue and yellow line work, and now with build 3 and build 4 red line work. Even if Vastin choose build 3, build 4 with less survivability or an average of the two builds, it will be playable and it's the fundamental purpose : red guard will be more intesting whatever final choice will be made. This won't be a cause of drama. But it's good to take care of another points of view about one class sometimes, and to accept compromises, you see.

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Of course guardian will be playable. It 2 shots landscape mobs.

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Originally Posted by Grimlir83

Blue and yellow line work, and now with build 3 and build 4 red line work. Even if Vastin choose build 3, build 4 with less survivability or an average of the two builds, it will be playable and it's the fundamental purpose : red guard will be more intesting whatever final choice will be made. This won't be a cause of drama. But it's good to take care of another points of view about one class sometimes, and to accept compromises, you see.

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Yellow line works? Wasnt it riddled with bugs for years and only gets used for crosstraiting? Did those get fixed? Did I miss something?

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Originally Posted by TiberiasKirk

So here is why you are right.

I got this right off the class descriptions on the LOTRO website itself:

"Tough and enduring, Guardians use their well practiced shield and weapon against any who seek to harm their allies. By the clang of sword upon shield, or the roar of battle cries, Guardians live to provoke opponents and divert potential damage from their allies. When fighting on their own, these masters of protection and heavy armour are like distance runners—winning through a well paced stamina of defense and offence abilities. When grouped with allies, Guardians focus on defense, defense, defense; no matter the direction of battle, whether victory or defeat, Guardians hold their ground until the last moment."


The only mention of offence is this:
"well paced stamina of defense and offence abilities"

Definition of stamina: the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.

So stamina of offense capabilities would mean sustained physical effort applied to offense meaning it takes time for a Guard to kill anything.
This is why people naturally think a Guard doesn't and shouldn't have a high dps traitline. It doesn't jive with the class description. Taking away their stamina in exchange for higher dps might seem fair from a class balance perspective, but it destroys the very nature of the class as defined by those who originally envisoned the class. So its rewriting the class description which from a product advertisement standpoint is false advertising.

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At no point does this imply that red line guardians cannot be viable as a DPS spec. How hard is that to understand? It's so tiresome to have to explain it over and over again.

Link

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Originally Posted by Helm's Deep Dev Diary for guardians

So for all of you returning players, you probably recognize the name of this tree as being the Guardians’ former DPS trait set. While not necessarily focusing on any specific means of damage dealing, this set offered some forms of skill-specific crit chance and increased damage, as well as some general improvements to survivability. My initial hopes were to somehow combine these bonuses with the essence of the Overpower stance (high base and crit damage) to create a fully functional DPS option for the Guardian. I wanted the Guardian to be able to hold his own when it came to damage numbers and not simply be viewed as a wannabe Champion. My first iteration, however, didn’t really accomplish this goal. I found myself left with a bunch of useful traits that did not really meld together into any singular play-style. The Guardian had high base damage, but that was about it. So I took a step back. I needed to find a feature of this class that I could actually turn into a fully formed play-style, where players would be forced to think through their actions, rather than simply hit the first button that lit up. And that’s when it came to me – bleeds. The Guardian has always had access to them, but I feel has never really utilized them as anything more than a secondary feature. It is from there that I decided on the bleed application/cashout mechanic.

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Red Guardian IS already a viable spec in build 3 and 4, thos who went to landscape with a guardian on Bullroarer could see it.

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Originally Posted by Giliodor

At no point does this imply that red line guardians cannot be viable as a DPS spec. How hard is that to understand? It's so tiresome to have to explain it over and over again.

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Its easy to understand, but you clearly can't. People understand from the class description that Guardians don't have comparable DPS relative to a dps class. What some dev wrote that is in contradiction to the class description is just an example of an employee who didn't read the company manual.

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Originally Posted by TiberiasKirk

Its easy to understand, but you clearly can't. People understand from the class description that Guardians don't have comparable DPS relative to a dps class. What some dev wrote that is in contradiction to the class description is just an example of an employee who didn't read the company manual.

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This is simply laughable. It's clear that after Helm's Deep, the design philosphy changed. Here you have a developer who clearly states that he designed red line guardians with the intent to be a viable DPS spec of itself. And there's absolutely nothing, not a thing, wrong with that. There's no argument you can give for why guardians should not be viable as a DPS. It would not negatively affect the game.

You're in a state of pure denial. I literally quoted the developer of the class saying that he inteded guardians to be viable as DPS.

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Originally Posted by TiberiasKirk

Its easy to understand, but you clearly can't. People understand from the class description that Guardians don't have comparable DPS relative to a dps class. What some dev wrote that is in contradiction to the class description is just an example of an employee who didn't read the company manual.

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Can we not have this discussion here? This is a feedback forum/thread, not a "It should be this or that".
If you want that, create a new thread in the Player Suggestions, and keep this thread on point. Where's Cordovan to cull some of these posts so it makes actual sense...

[QUOTE=Giliodor;7840788There's no argument you can give for why guardians should not be viable as a DPS. It would not negatively affect the game.

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Well being a main dps and THE main tank class would be not fair compared to other classes. They would need to buff the champ to a top tier tank, the hunter to a top tier CC class (you were correct here), the LM to a top tier DD, the RK to a top tier healer, the beo/warden to...SOMETHING xD, the mini to a top tier DD (I remember times when the mini actually WAS a superp DD and everybody cried) etc...They will NEVER ever be able to achive this so..


IMO they should not nerf Guard skills because the guard will nevertheless be the main tank anyway so why bother...

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Originally Posted by Hildilas

They will NEVER ever be able to achive this so..

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Why not? Beorning is probably the only class that needs a ton of work, the rest mostly just need numerical tweaks. Is there any point not aiming to balance every line?

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Originally Posted by Hildilas

Well being a main dps and THE main tank class would be not fair compared to other classes. They would need to buff the champ to a top tier tank, the hunter to a top tier CC class (you were correct here), the LM to a top tier DD, the RK to a top tier healer, the beo/warden to...SOMETHING xD, the mini to a top tier DD (I remember times when the mini actually WAS a superp DD and everybody cried) etc...They will NEVER ever be able to achive this so..

IMO they should not nerf Guard skills because the guard will nevertheless be the main tank anyway so why bother...

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I'm advocating that there shouldn't be such a thing as "main DPS" or "main tank". Every class with a tank spec can tank, every class can DPS, every class with a healing spec can heal, like you're saying. Why would they never be able to achieve this? It's exactly what these class updates could be used for.

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Originally Posted by Hildilas

Well being a main dps and THE main tank class would be not fair compared to other classes. They would need to buff the champ to a top tier tank, the hunter to a top tier CC class (you were correct here), the LM to a top tier DD, the RK to a top tier healer, the beo/warden to...SOMETHING xD, the mini to a top tier DD (I remember times when the mini actually WAS a superp DD and everybody cried) etc...They will NEVER ever be able to achive this so..


IMO they should not nerf Guard skills because the guard will nevertheless be the main tank anyway so why bother...

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Even with guard dps as high as it is right now, they wouldn't get taken for raids as a dps since they don't do fire damage. I don't have an issue where they are in dps since they can dps in 3/6 mans and on landscape.

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Originally Posted by Giliodor

This is simply laughable. It's clear that after Helm's Deep, the design philosphy changed. Here you have a developer who clearly states that he designed red line guardians with the intent to be a viable DPS spec of itself. And there's absolutely nothing, not a thing, wrong with that. There's no argument you can give for why guardians should not be viable as a DPS. It would not negatively affect the game.

You're in a state of pure denial. I literally quoted the developer of the class saying that he inteded guardians to be viable as DPS.

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This isn't TESO where you can equip a healing staff and become a healer, equip a fire staff and become a caster dps, equip a shield and become a tank.

I have played my guardian as a 2h loldps since forever, sure i would like for my dps to be "viable" in terms of end game raiding, being able to take a dps spot instead of off tank spot but i knew when choosing to play a guard as 2h loldps that i would never be able to compete with proper dps classes but instead traded that extra dps other classes have for greater def capabilities.

I get that you end game raiders who have completed everything on your guard, being bored of taken into raids only as a tank want to be taking a dps spot but lets not forget what a guardian actually is, a tank class.

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Originally Posted by dawaaagh

but lets not forget what a guardian actually is, a tank class.

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Blue/Yellow Guardians are tanks, Red is DPS. You need to stop with the old mentality of class = role, it hasn't existed in-game for years. When an RK specs red they are there to DPS, when they spec Blue they're there to heal. A blue RK is not the same as a red RK and that's something people generally accept. The same thing applies to Guardians and Beornings and Captains and so on and so forth. When we spec a traitline we aim to do the role of that traitline, not the arbitrary role you deem to be the one and only thing that a class should do.

There's absolutely no reason to not have every traitline be competitive for their respective roles. It doesn't diminish player choice and class variety, it expands it.

I read that the update will go on live tomorrow.
About the guardian, I have confidence, it'll be an improvement comparing to the current state, even if another point of view than mine (Joeandgod, Gilliodor, etc ) is chosen.
Two litte things :
- release notes in french are different from english ones, they are not integral but it is not a big problem
- release notes in french talk about the removal of brutal charge's konckdown ("La compétence suivant Charge brutale déclenche désormais un coup critique au lieu d'un effet d'étourdissement"), and not the english ones ; I suppose that it's a previous state of the release notes, that has not been removed... we will see !
In any case, thank you very much Vastin for your work !

Thank you Vastin for all the hard work you've done with the class balance, was awesome seeing you pop in from time-to-time as well.

Though, it wasn't perfect, eh, nothing is. Overall, you did right by us and I'll not complain.....aside from renaming Overwhelm to Salt the Wound....

P.S. Please keep in mind Hammer-Down is still broken as hell cause you can get old bonuses when using a raid set.