Yes, many do have aoe stuns but Brutal charge is not a stun. And no I don't share exploits on forums.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawaaagh
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Yes, many do have aoe stuns but Brutal charge is not a stun. And no I don't share exploits on forums.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawaaagh
Right its not a stun but kd, basically the same thing. In coordinated groups using voice chat it serves the same purpose, in pug groups a kd (if it shares the same duration) as a stun will be better no doubt as errors are more prone.Quote:
Originally Posted by siipperi
As for "exploits" isn't this a bug problem not a skill problem ? if your whole argument is based around the skill being abused in an instance or multiple instances then its the instance "bug" that needs fixing not the skill, maybe you should report this exploit/bug instead of trying to force your argument onto others who may not be in the pro club where exploits are shared around in order to make life easier.
This is an excellent point.Quote:
Originally Posted by TiberiasKirk
Why should a player who has invested almost 500 Anfalas Scrolls of Empowerment (and umpteen starlit crystals) etc into a 2H weapon now be forced to make a 1H weapon just to access the shield bash stun?
The programmer could simply copy the code for Brutal charge as it is in Live now (functioning perfectly with no bugs) into the new Bullroarer build and save hundreds of Guardians the pain of losing their favorite skill and having to create new LIs from scratch.
Every possible reason to remove Charge knockdown has been shown to be invalid.
Unless they give us a valuable skill to replace it (such as full stealth) then players will be upset that the Guardian is being nerfed and many will quit playing.
If they want to remove a skill, why not Hammer down, or one of the other useless ST skills that don't give a bleed?
Hammer down does a puny amount of damage and has a 1 minute CD, so is practically useless for DPS.
As far as what makes a hunter fun to play - it's the huge variety of skills.
To give us only DPS skills as red guardians makes for boring gameplay.
That's what made charge knockdown so interesting and fun - there is no other skill in red line like it.
It adds variety and strategy to the gameplay.
Again, you're basing your argument on "A lot of people like it." and yet I don't see a lot of people. Not everyone shares the same sentiment about Brutal Charge. Yeah, losing a stun sucks, but it didn't belong in the line to begin with.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalfy
Shown invalid by whom? You? What? No, it wasn't. At best, there are as many reasons to keep it as to remove it, when you count in the bias. Count in the facts, and it makes no sense to have such a potent AOE disable on a ST line. LUL Stealth. I can only see 5 people on the forums being upset, and asking almost every Guardian I could find on Arkenstone agreed on losing knockdown in favour of a lot more DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalfy
Again, no it isn't. I've had regular 55k+ hits on BR during the first build. It's a very damaging, high crit skill that stuns when enemy is under 50% morale. Biased again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalfy
Edit: Line is shifting to single target (why on earth would you remove a ST skill then), and ironically you'll still have better AOE DPS than on live.
No, it's the fact that since time immemorial, people liked ranged combat in video-games, especially MMOs. Quick, deadly, efficient.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalfy
There also any other skills and traits like Shield-Smash, Disorientation, TTK, Bolster, Tenderize, Radiate....Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalfy
Just cause they're there, doesn't make them interesting. Too much bias happening here to make a reasonable argument at this point. See what I've quoted Vastin say earlier. Their game, their rules, and we Guardians that've been to hell and back in the past years fully applaud this change.
O. M. G. . . Oh my guardian. Why is Shield Use Rank disappearing on LI belts? It is a useful stat, one I've come to rely on a lot in my sword & board build. It actually makes shield-based dps viable - I mean, by Guardian dps standards...
Upgraded with starlit crystals on First Age LI, this stat is wonderful. Instead of relying on weapon and hitting like a wet noodle, my entire Guardian build is based around this stat. Shield use ranked up + shield spikes + some extra crit adds up to an interesting and exciting alternative while leveling or questing on landscape. Why remove this ability to rank up shield dps? Please reconsider... don't just delete it.
I confess my guardian is not at level cap yet. But I wanted to give this feedback based on extensively playing my guard for years with an exp-disabler, so I still gear him out with best-in-slot gear and maxed First Age LIs (at level 60, 65, 75, now approaching 85). Shield Use Rank is very serviceable and efficient at least in this range, contributing decently to shield dps. If it's a matter of scaling poorly at cap, it really deserves to be looked into and given another chance with some tweaks, don't just throw away the baby with the bathwater pls...Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
The *only* possible rank stat on LI belts I could see it being replaced with is Incoming Healing Rank, but as that is not happening... it is really really not worth abandoning Shield Use just because it needs some extra love at cap. Give it some luv in next round of class changes, keep it.
I agree with this. The only thing that made Brutal Charge useful to me was its knockdown effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by TiberiasKirk
According to the devs, it wasn't working properly. And to some extend, it can be seen on live. It increased damage of skills that aren't tied to shields (War-Chant).Quote:
Originally Posted by Aelir
If you look at what the devs said, damage of shield-related skills is tied to the weapon, with the damage on the skill itself being greatly increased on Bullroarer. I was managing to parse up to 8-10k DPS with a S&B set-up on a single target, which is more than you can get on live in with a 2H weapon. Damage is, again, greatly increased.
Even amongst us that are in favour of removal the Brutal Charge knickdown aren't satisfied with what's on display. We're hoping for changes, but removing the knockdown was a step in the right direction for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aelir
It's not a step in the right direction for others, just those that use yellow and blue spec mostly(see their own comments). These are also the same people that want to see self heals removed from red and leave it with 1 or 2 heals that may or may not be good. These others as well want to see red traits that they like placed in that spec for easier access while putting yellow and blue traits farther down in the respective trees to gimp red spec players.
It's all for purely selfish reasons and they are not thinking about compromises that may be for the benefit to the whole guardian community.
You cannot have all-in-one trait tree. It breaks the game on multiple of levels.Quote:
Originally Posted by Madmanthief
You want good DPS and self-healing/self-sustain and CC and overall sturdiness in one line? No other class does that even remotely, excluding Wardens, which are gimped in their own ways.
How are they for selfish reasons? In what sense? We all play the same class, same trait lines, though with different ideas. Please go on to the test server, make characters at various levels and witness yourself how much better the current build is going. It's not perfect, there are things to finish and workout a bit, but people should learn to give and receive. You cannot have both in a balance pass.
Yeah, it sucks that self-healing is gone, it sucks the knockdown is being removed. But what we are getting instead is something which was gone ever since Helms Deep revamps launched. We're getting a proper landscape line that no longer depends on a weird gimmick with Radiate and POTW to damage and survive. With 30 trait points, you can have a much better experience leveling (no more single bleed that tiered up, dealing low damage, reliance on crits which just DON'T happen at lower levels, the need for Radiate to spread the bad bleed). Yeah, it sucks that now if you pull 10 mobs, you'll most likely die unless you actually know what you're doing, not exactly friendly, but again, aside from ONE OTHER class in the game that can do that, it's not fair towards others.
This game is balanced around grouping, not soloing. Red line should not the go-to reason to make a Guardian.
For over 2 years, outspoken Guardians have been asking for buffs, with various drafts, builds etc. as proposals. And we were more than happy to get rid of the self-healing and Brutal Charge knockdown in favour of a massive damage boost. No need for healing in a fight because a proper fight should not last over a minute with a single mob. I genuinely wonder how many of you who are asking for reverts have been on Bullroarer and given feedback as to why something won't work now. Also, you're not compromising with us at all, it's the devs. At the end of the day, our sayings can only go as far as they see what the grand vision should be. If they decide to return/keep the knockdown, that's arguably fine. I will focus making the best of the new and improved tools I was given to finally enjoy landscape on my Guardian after so many years.
If you're still peddling your points, times they are a changin'... .
That's a lot of pages of nothing. If you want to provide useful feedback, log into Bullroarer, test the changes and then share your opinion. You don't speak for anybody but yourself, unless somebody explicitly agrees to that. Saying "a large portion of Guardian community will be upset" or "a large portion of Guardian community will not even notice" means nothing. You don't know that. You may feel that way, but you don't know that. A 14 vs 9 or 28 vs 18 means nothing. Now if those 14 and 9 all actually test the changes and provide good, useful feedback, preferably with test data, that will have value.
Here's what useful feedback might look like (although I expect it would be quite a bit more elaborate):
"I logged my lvl XX Guardian and spent two hours questing in XX. TTK was quite a bit shorter than on Live, but the lack of knockdown on Brutal Charge made pulling 10 mobs at once next to impossible."
"I spent three hours deeding in West Rohan and I can say that the nerf to self-healing is rather noticeable and introduces a lot of undesirable down-time between pulls."
"Removing the knockdown was the right move. It cannot be used to exploit certain instances and I didn't feel any squishier thanks to shorter TTK. I asked my creep buddies to test PvMP with me and they all agree that the removal of knockdown from Brutal Charge coupled with increased damage makes fights both more interesting and fair."
Once again: Test the changes, then provide feedback. Give examples of what you tested and how the changes affected it.
Guardian by design should not be sustained self healer class, just look the history, how many variants have this option? Just HDs versio of guardian that is by far worst designed guardian. If someone wants sustaining self healing out of their tank they should roll warden. Its simple as that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Madmanthief
I would say I'm in the for camp for Brutal charge.
Have it cancel if you switch trait lines though if that's to do with the exploit/abuse, make it a longer CD so it's very much an emergency skill.
I'd prefer that no class gains advantage form trait switch prior to a pull. Makes class/tree balancing easier.
Vastin's been focusing on his hunter parses. Is he also laying down a bunch of yellow traps before the pull, double tapping focus after camo and burn hot and putting on his HS reset gear? Ah, no.
Instead we get a 50% bottomed CD to tree swap that's just annoying without achieving anything.
I'm loathed to be put in either camp just because each group has opinions I don't necessarily agree with much of the time :(
Keep it and limit it.
Mac
Worth noting that nobody wants the current form of Brutal Charge. Some people want it to be an AoE knockdown, others want a replacement trait that contributes to DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macdui
I don't think there is but one camp that is in lines of "ah my gawd we losing stuff" other party is just bunch of people who have attitude of classes change, nothing wrong in that... We lose some of stuff and gain some, nothing meaningful magnitude to get triggered about. Insignificant loss compared to real fundamental changes of being done to the class. Gaining DPS, losing self heals, changing bleed dynamics, those are changes for which people should get triggered off if anything. And provide feedback on those aspects of the class, not flood 3 pages worth of feedback about who is against and who's not against of insignificant trait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Macdui
Why you need to double tap focus to do parse on training dummy...?
Me too :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by TiberiasKirk
As somebody said earlier: I think the knockdown is very useful (and fun!) when solo questing on my guardian.
I don't think it's a valuable argument that you can get a knockdown effect from another line,
especially since this option isn't available while leveling your guardian. I think the vast majority of casual players will be pleased with keeping the effect.
Edit:
Btw, I don't understand why it should be okay that a shield-skill from blue line does more damage than any red line skill with a 2h-weapon.
Surely, this can't be as intended. iirc, shield-smash was supposed to generate lots of threat, but not to crit for absurd amount of damage.
Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Onno
Preserve Brutal Charge Knockdown in some form (17 total supporters):
TiberiasKirk
Gandalfy
Brethwyn_EU
dawaagh
Oddessia
SACLOTRO
Grimlir83
Bhorn_EU
Madmantheif
Pontin_Finnberry
Gainandrial
Piff
BigLotroFan
CambellCommunity
Aelir
Macdui
Ono
I also count 10 posters against (not making a list of them) and as many as 6 that didn't say anyting either way.
A couple seemed to lean towards supporting keeping it, but didn't definitively say it or ask for it to stay
in some form.
If I got your position wrong (or you changed your mind), please chime in to have your name taken off or added to the list.
Its like a petition, I think its important for the Devs to see it.
I will not repeat what I have already said, consequently this message will be short.
I am one of the guardians who like the knockdown and who would like to keep it, BUT it will be not a drama if it's removed : red guardian without knockdown and Pow on Bullroarer is better than red guardian one live. On AOE his DPS is better.
I have tried 8 times to pull a lot of mobs in craft instances of Mordor to evaluate against level 115 NPC. In Bhol Rudh for example, it's no longer possible to pull 12 npc like on live and kill them, BUT 7-8 NPC is manageable and it takes a lot shorter time (1/3 I think) to kill them.
I think I will enjoy more the new guardian.
Exactly this, im not going to pretend i have tested the new changes because i don't have the time to do so although i have read them and seen the opinions of kin members who have spent time on bullroarer testing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimlir83
i have no doubt the changes are positive and i am very happy however those of us who don't like the brutaI charge change feel given the lengthily cd of the skill a damage gain from it hardly means much where as a KD has a great use, even if it was changed from aoe to st or have a max target cap it would serve a much greater purpose.
And please don't just think of the end game pro raiders who have said the aoe kd can be used as an exploit think of the players who have different play styles and goals.
Having not played on BR I can't say much but looking at parses from friends and others on the forums (Most notably those crazy warden parses) i'd suggest a further damage increase, our damage seems 5-10k off the mark.
What? We're not suggesting there be a damage buff attached to charge; we're suggesting that the Brutal Charge trait be entirely removed and replaced with a +25% base damage on non-bleed skills trait or something in that vein.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawaaagh
At the moment Guardian base damage is fairly low, low enough that a 200k mastery 2h build still generally only hits for around 10k with most of the skills. Brutal Charge is a trait that didn't really fit the theme of the traitline so it's a decent thing to remove in favour of a damage increase.
And please, please go and try out the changes on the next Bullroarer build yourself rather than just echoing the feedback of kinmates. In practice you'll find that Red Guardian is a lot more single target focused now.
Ok, I've started work on the guardian's 2nd pass. Mostly pretty happy with the first pass, so this is probably mostly going to be modest number tweaks to bring the damage up a bit further.
I am looking at putting the knockdown back on Brutal Charge - it can cause technical issues with boss fights, but generally speaking all modern bosses are immune to it as a result, so.... <shrug>
Aaaand, I have to decide what to do with 'Shield Use', or what to replace it with. Thanks for all your suggestions on this front.
I'm glad to see that some of the shield builds are competitive as AoE builds. I'm a little wary about the sheer number of targets that Guardian's can currently engage however - as much fun as it is to solo lower level dungeons and pull dozens of mobs at once, it also generates a ton of server load to run a 12-man raid for a single character. Also, I'd like to make sure that real 12-man raids have to run multiple tanks to keep everything 'managed'.
Will be looking over this stuff over the next couple days.
-Vastin
Have to say I'm very disappointed with this. It does nothing to address what Red Guardian lacks (damage) and instead just goes further to increase what they have in abundance (Survival skills). If you intend to keep the Brutal Charge knockdown and increase Guardian DPS further I would encourage you to look at nerfing Warriors Heart in Redline. The spec is just way too durable to justify much DPS increase right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Incoming healing on the belt would be great. Know your busy and we're probably overcritical lots of times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Those that really want to keep brutal charge knockdown appreciate that you are considering keeping it.
Thinks for thanking of us.
Disappointing that you're considering giving back the knockdown on brutal charge, but I suppose it's not wrong to do so. Some of us hoped for something more interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Additionally, what's happening to Prey in the Weak, Thrill of Battle and Deeper Wounds? All 3 of them are pretty underwhelming and....well, they suck. Plain and simple.
We don't need another power-on-crit (POTW), the heal on Thrill of Battle is a joke and Deeper Wounds extra bleed ticks are not needed since you almost always cycle through parry responses.
Regarding active skills, are there going to be buffs to Hammer-Down and Honourable Combat? For capstone traits, they are both meh, with Hammer-Down being slightly ahead (only if it crits). Also, Overwhelm needs a better option, +5% Attack Duration debuff is just bad.
Regarding legacies, what's happening to Overwhelm damage legacy? Seems mediocre at best in the current shape. Also, can you tell us if Insult to Injury works with the bleeds?
Last, but certainly not least, please look into making Warriors Fortitude flat bonuses better (in blue it gives 900ish incoming heal, which is too small; red gives 400 physical mastery, which is like a drop in the ocean in current stats; yellow also gives mastery, which seems odd for a tanking line.)
Thank you for reading.
Personally, I think that if it returns, the Brutal Charge setbonus knockdown should expire. Give it a 12s duration, same as the speed buff with the trait. I don't think that should increase with the To The Rescue trait.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
For the buff to persist semi-permanently feels wrong, though it is kinda fun to use.
Edit:
Are we missing out on mechanics and cc options in boss fights because of this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
So burn hot timer isn't being used up while going through an improved focus induction. Is not my game but some peeps like to epeen and show off their best parse whatever the circumstance. I suppose they (SSG) need to know the upper limits of what's possible though. As well as the sub par build, gear and execution parses and the mindless one button if they want to how that works.Quote:
Originally Posted by siipperi
Mac
Missed Vastin's quote, but re brutal charge, thumbs up from me and many practitioners of dwarf bowling :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedangod
Update 22.2 notes say "Brutal Charge should now cause the next skill to crit rather than knockdown (note that it can still be b/p/e'd)"Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedangod
A +25% base damage increase i would be happy about, not the crit buff that was planned.
Threat mechanics for five odd years has caused technical issues with boss fights in many of the older boss fights. I'd favour Brutal Charge knockdown if it was a much longer CD and more an emergency skill rather than a common offensive skill. And the buff dropping on a tree swap, for your Server load.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
If you removed set bonuses from the game you would stop those times when one or two classes get an exceptional bonus that allows them to do the extraordinary.
Our target numbers are still way behind the yellow champs that we'd have to deal with when tanking, that is if Friendly Hat gets them a raid slot. I see that some original legacies are being changed to the imbued versions, notably on the mini. Non imbued belts with max targets can be used for a swappy to affect more numbers than you'd be happy with. Is it time to update these relic legacies? Maybe in another update.
Mac
Yeah, nobody was happy about that. We outright said we wanted something damage related to replace that trait, we never said we wanted the forced crit.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawaaagh
I agree. Remember this isn't a thread to debate each other's opinions. I'll be going through the thread in a bit to cull some posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brightswitch
Any class can do that so no reason to focus on it. Guard after changes is significantly worse for this unless you go blue for bolstering blocks and as said, every class can do mass pulls on low level instances. considering there is no payoff to do so nobody in generally does solo low level raids or instances unless its CoS 3 man. I can do bigger pull than guardians posted videos on this thread on hunter and kill stuff faster so seems totally pointless to address that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Vastin, whilst you are gently crafting away at the good old tin can, can you change the damage from shields to whatever our weapon scroll is? Common damage is just so 2009, isn't it ;)
Use shield spikes?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhorn_EU
Yup, crafting can be useful :)
There's always been mobs that are resistant to or reflect certain damage types. While an LI title maybe going too far, a different spike can be used in combat if you get surprised or forget. If it's really bad switch off auto attack and just use shield skills so the healer can try to keep the lemmings alive.
On the whole though in a tank spec we haven't had too many worries with reflect damage because we never did much damage to hurt us. The scenario played out like the lights going out on biometrics in the first contact in "Aliens" as party members (hunters) disappear one by one. If we are getting viable damage output now could we see the first ever guardian suicide?
Mac
I personally have no issues pulling the army in the Fighter of Shadow stance while laughing in the face of evil. The Yellow line Guardian is incomprehensibly powerful in the right hands.The Dangers and mistakes of boosting the stances which do not need boosting at all. The similar scenario with the Champion class as I mentioned before ~ The primary role of the Guardian is to tank , not to carve through the foes as other classes. Be wise with Red stance and Bleeds. I was unable to participate in the round of BETA. Errors and so on..
I sincerely appreciate the hard work,effort,desire and will to improve classes. The idea of removal of the Knockdown is not admirable for me at least. Twas rather unique. I would't have touched it at all.
"Overall skill damage for the guardian has increased substantially. The blue and yellow lines will see some benefit from this through the base skills, but the red line will see the bulk of this benefit, through their tree specific skills and bleed effects" Copied from The Official release notes.
"The DPS of the red line guardian was far too low to make it particularly functional for soloing or as a team DPS member"
It would not use the term" Far too low", Far too low in comparison of other Mega overpowered DPS machines such are the Rune-Keeper,Hunter or Red line Warden.Since I was unable to participate in the BETA and test it personally I can but guess the final term of "Substantially" or the numbers behind it.
Ultimately I would rather see 35-50% Damage increase, rather than 100-150% which is possibly going to happen and Guardian takes the throne again as one of the Ultra strong classes, It already is if you know the class well.
Danger ~ Substantially plus with benefit of blue and yellow line. The issues lies in boosting all of the three Trait Tree lines/specifications. I would leave Fighter of Shadow at side.
To shorten it up, It is not looking good at all. You are further Augmenting the classes,. They are becoming more potent and versatile with each passing year/update.
Think about it; The primary role of the Guardian is to tank, The Landscape farm/DPS might and certainly is {At the moment} It pales in comparison with other classes,but that is the point,It is far more complex, but the game was reached the point when every single class became the ultra DPS Demi God Vala, and now Guardians "lack" such potential which they should , but well. Tis in vain..
Please re-check Thoughtfully the Keen's Blade Raw damage potency before the release.
Kind Regards,
Vanyalanthiriel Vanimelda,High Queen of the Noldor
I never said it should be a sustained heal Siiperri, just that the heals shouldn't be ganked outright to satisfy a certain subset of the playerbase.
How would you all feel about Hammer Down giving a heal based upon a percentage of the damage done and still keep the cd that it currently has, then you can change ToB too either a might or physical mastery increase as suggested by Joedangod.
I wonder if instead of a static amount if the might/physical mastery can increase with the players level by a certain amount per level. Just looking for alternatives here to satisfy more people.
I hope Vastin considers minor DPS increase, especially to initial hits. Some of us before all this thought peak DPS would be just 40-45k DPS on hunter and so on, however seems now that the goal is 50k and + (hunter, warden, burg and basically champ). This means guard DPS should go up as well 10-15% at minimum. Wardens for example hit over 50k at the moment, while having superior self healing in red line (you should speak with warden dev about nerffing restoration and resolution in red line). I think it would be fair to have closer to 40k DPS as red guardian (which is that ~15%). Still not challenging real DPS but within margin of distance that was the original design intent. Now difference in terms of DPS is about 40% which is imo too much for class that can't really offer any group benefit like LM in their red line.
I also hope he rechecks light classes LI damage ratings on legendary items. It has just shot down the damage of these classes so badly. I don't know what's LM damage at the moment, but compensating 50% lower ratings by buffing base damage is really bad solution. LI damage ratings should be relatively close to each others no matter of the class. Partials are already counted to our parses and balanced those in mind so not like you lose real DPS, because balancing takes account partials... This whole LI thing just means RKs are good ~30% behind top DPS (3-4 classes), minstrels are behind good 50% and LM I honestly do not know, used to be behind 50% by my own testings (but I dont play LM) with #### rotation but that was before tactical relic change, and so on. LI damage rating increase would solve a lot here without breaking difference how light and other classes produce their damage in terms of "LI x base damage" -ratio. It would be really unfair towards physical classes if light classes can get pass with their LIs by not increasing them as much, while for physicals to do same levels of DPS their LIs need to be maxed to last. Because damage rating differential will just mean this will be the case if classes would actually be within 10% of each others, which of course is not the case at the moment.
That's a 33% increase over the current highest red guardian parses that have been shown on forums. If you have been parsing higher you need to screenshot the CA parse and upload it here yourself to help give a more accurate idea of where Guards currently stand.Quote:
Originally Posted by siipperi
Then the Raid must be designed to be managed by several tanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
You have several instances where you need to tank many targets.
As long as enough healing and emergency skills are available, groups will always be tanked by one tank.
If the Guardian's targets are missing the Warden / Champ will do the job.
Or there are mechanics that prevent this.
Considering that this year, a level cap increase comes, you should consider how the balance between the classes with a level increase suitably remains.
Equalize the weapen dmg / tactical dmg / heal rating and change Li Legace all to the same rating.
I now it seems boring but you don´t have the man power to balance the classes every level cap.
Better to do it the right way, before rework it a thousand times.
Update 3 for guard,
1) We have lost our knockdown
2) 1 self heal on 45 sec CD for 3%
3) 1 self heal for 1 minute CD for 20%
4) 1 self heal for (traited) 73% on a 2 min CD.
That kinda sucks, specially if you are running round in just quest gear, no tomes and maybe no essences. Given just how much self healing champs and wardens and even captains can put out, I think the change to pray on the weak is too much.
In exchange, you're doing massive amounts of damage in heavy armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhorn_EU
Loss of healing is fine. DPS is a lot better, you no longer need crit to apply bleeds. You can still pull multiple mobs if you know what you're doing.
There is something to be said for dropping Honorable Combat altogether at this point though. It's a really small heal with a hefty CD that could easily be swapped out for some other DPS relevant trait.
Give Overwhelm the ability to instantly remove all bleeds for a massive damage spike?Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedangod
Guardian self healing is still great... My braveheart still heals 172k morale out of 179k morale pool in red line... Which would be over 95% heal. Only thing they need is more stuff focused on DPS output. less on healing. Honourable combat doesnt work atm. But it still should be like 5% heal from each target removed Wound.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bhorn_EU
first of all - I am by no means a pro guardian, just some casual.
I have not tried to do Dor Amarth on my guardian yet on live but on BR it was a catastrophe with full ash (abyssal) set with empowered abyssal essences (70+k morale, 2h axe). 2 Ghash-hai are fine, but 3 with 1 ranged are in realm of "hardly possible"/"impossible" for a casual. Ofc you may argue that I need to use heals whenever off cd and time pulls with cd but try to do that as casually geared player (a big chunck of players) when trying to pick up lore pages and rare Mordor chests in Talath Urui and Agarnaith.
I might be wrong that Thrill of Battle was "nerfed" with 20s cd while Prey on the Weak was buffed back in the day. Now that PotW is useless maybe it would be better to reduce ToB cd?
As per my original comment, if you have 179k morale pool, you are most certainly NOT in quest gear or a little bit of crafted, you have rank 20 in Vit tomes, and a full set of t10 essences. For the majority of the playerbase, which actually make up the dollars for SSG, those numbers are simply unobtainable, so to base a class update on what, without sounding snide, are the numbers generated by the "elite" few (horrible phrase, I know) is folly; if the top 5% of guards have all the best of the best gear wise and the class rebalance is based on their feedback, then 95% of guardian players feel like they have been given the dirty end of the mucky stick, get fed up with dying, leave the game, and stop paying SSG.Quote:
Originally Posted by siipperi
"For the many, not the few" as someone once said.
I'm looking at bumping the overpower debuff to -10% attack speed - keeping the duration short however. It may not be the sexiest debuff in the dps charts and parses, but its technically very valuable in group situations, esp against bosses. Other than that I'm just bumping the dps on Overwhelm so that it's a solid striker in the rotation.
General initial skill damage for the guardian is going up again to get them closer to where they generally want to be.
Still trying to sort out that Brutal Charge/knockdown mechanic.
Now comes the bit many of you are probably going to be pretty annoyed by:
Guardian AoE Target numbers are generally being reduced to compensate for greatly increased overall DPS, and Challenge in particular is being reduced substantially, with a considerably longer cooldown and reduced targets. I suspect this will initially be unpopular for MT guardians, but I want to make sure that in large, complex encounters, the dynamics of managing pulls are not reduced to a single tank simply pulling and holding all threat for as long as they can be kept alive. My goal is for raid groups in particular (and occasionally 6-mans) be required to field multiple tanks/off-tanks and share aggro management responsibilities to keep the team safe.
Also, as the base DPS of the guardian is going up quite substantially relative to the main DPS classes, Guardians should find it easier to keep ahead of the DPS threat curve once they have grabbed threat. That's the theory anyway. If it doesn't work in practice, I'll certainly be revisiting these changes. The idea is not to make threat management impossible - just to keep it interesting and dynamic, and to encourage some tank-juggling even in circumstances when the mobs are not explicitly using threat-dump mechanics.
-Vastin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
So....wait....against what bosses are talking about here? 6 man instances? FI? Raid?
Edit: I assume you mean Blind Rage buff from traited To The King skill in deep red line, right? Overpower doesn't exist anymore. Or is it Valorous Strength talent?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Hmmm, what exactly would be that "want to be" point? Competitive? I'm certain that with the current build, the Red Guard deals more than enough to handle landscape. Only needed somethings for PVMP, so I suppose it could fit there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Wishes were already expressed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
There was a massive uproar when you removed some AOE targets from Shield-Smash about a year or so ago. I guess people will see this as another call to arms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Consider designing content around needing multiple tanks rather than nerfing tanks. While this is one approach, it'll only tear new wounds. We'll see how it pans out. Though, I don't think off-tank and tank work in a team in 6 man instances. Additionally, there aren't any other good off-tanks to compliment the Guardian (excluding Wardens, but good luck finding a Warden who doesn't want to DPS).
While I am seeing where you're going with this, I feel like one thing that should be disclosed is how damage from varying skills results in threat. What are the modifiers, how do they work, damage-in-skill-to-threat rations and everything small bit in between. There was a table made detailing some of the skills, but it's greatly obsolete by this point, I imagine, so some clarification into these numbers would mean a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Edit: What's happening to POTW, Deeper Wounds, Thrill of Battle, Hammer-Down and Honourable Combat? Are they getting buffs/reworks?
That's...pretty interesting to say the least. It has gotten a bit silly over the past few years where tanking has mostly just been dependent on how well you time challenge so I'll look forward to this new system. I'm not sure how it's going to play in comparison to the other tanks though. Captains are pretty lousy with aggro outside of their taunts and Beorning aggro is totally non-existent without Thunderous Roar. It'd take some pretty comprehensive reworks to allow those tanks to operate on the same system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
That being said, I think you're solving your brutal charge conundrum with this. Fewer targets means you won't be knocking mobs down in droves and thus the skill would probably lose most of its appeal to those who still want it.
Oh, and before I forget: There's an unimbued Legacy increasing Guardian AoE targets that will probably need to go if you're switching us over to a fewer target, more active threat generating rotation.
Seriously? What's the max number of targets we can hit with a damage skill, 8 from traited shield smash, isn't it? Have you have actually played a guard into the heavily mobbed camps in Mordor with the 1 minute respawn timers. Oh and don't forget the ever lovely stun/disarm/disarm/stun/disarm from more than one Uruk anywhere after Rohan. Please reconsider the AOE targets, the single most important factor above all else is it MUST be fun to play, if it's not, you could end up with no-one running your instances cos all the guards have gone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
For the many, not the few.
Good questions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Decrepify
Hammer down got a bigger base damage buff, nothing exciting there, just hard hitting.
PotW now procs additional damage whenever you crit against a target with Slashing Wounds - it seems to contribute well to AoE builds. May revisit it again in the future, but I think it's going to stay on that for the time being.
Still looking at the others.
-Vastin
Alright, thank you for the swift response. Can you tell us how this additional damage scales? Mastery? Level(Please, no)? Is it reduced by mits?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Or do you not wish to spoil the thrill of testing for us? :P
Either way, thank you for all the work, I imagine it's coming in the next build?
Edit: Do you still keep the old bonus from power restore? Maybe have each bleed add an additional effect, rewarding for keeping all 3 of them active?
In that case, only bleed left is Deep Wound. If you do go this path, then maybe Deeper Wounds will have a purpose to be traited...
Replacing Thrill of Battle with +5% extra crit chance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Giliodor
Two birds, one stone.
A mechanic like that for PotW seems a bit unfair for one of the few classes in the game that doesn't have a +5% critical chance trait. Perhaps you could bake some extra crit chance into the spec somewhere? Guardians are at a fairly big disadvantage without.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Are there any thoughts on tweaking yellow at all? It seems to be designed to be the Guardian AoE tanking-through-damage and debuffs line, it'll probably struggle even more if it continues to lose available targets. Conceptually it's definitely one of the coolest traitlines in the game so it would be a shame to see it drop further into irrelevance.
I hope you as dev team talk about tank threat skills across the board. I do not know whats challenge targets going to be after changes (probably under 10), or what CD is going to be (probably 45s). However you need to remember guardian is not the only tank in the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
AoE taunt skills:
Warden: 10 targets, 20s CD
Captain: 6 targets, 15s CD
Beorning: unlimited targets (I assume ~10 is max here, skill doesnt tell), 16s CD. and channeled AoE taunt (everything on range), 30s CD
So if you nerf guardian AoE taunt, you need to realize other classes will suddenly become superior tanks to hold aggro. And before you say you are going to tank with better damage on skills. Not really, you simply can't compete vs hunter doing 100-200k DPS bursts on targets. It's impossible. SSG has designed whole tanking around 9x multiplier on force taunt skills, this results only way to tank is to use this aggro copy lead. Without aggro copy 3x multiplier for normal skills is not enough to compensate this. As guard you might hit ~30-40k criticals with shield smash (takes good 5s to build it) in tank build at top, which would be <200k threat. Meanwhile one hunter critical hit is 200k on same target.
Im not against changes if they are made properly, but it really requires increase to skill threat multipliers in damage line and reduce taunt multipliers. I dont mind if its still "copy x lead" but lead multiplier needs to be brought down. I hope you can do some kind of meeting on whole threat building and tanking fundamentals. A lot/all of guards would like to see actual skills matter more and taunts matter less.´
And thing you need to remember unimbued guardians belt has +5 challenge targets. So it will become even more meta. Some of us already swap for it for some pulls. But certainly after this.
Roar is unlimited. The maul channel actually has a fairly low target limit, don't recall exactly what it is.Quote:
Originally Posted by siipperi
Like others I think there's to be cautious with those changes and their consequences on tanking, but the concept of managing aggro with threat generation instead of spamming force taunts looks very interesting for me. Now we will have to see exactly the consequences of all these things on Bullroarer.
I'm afraid I'm actively trying to avoid this sort of mechanic. When too many skills/effects try to interact at once, that's when the bugs start to pile up and become intractable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Decrepify
I'm fine with strong skill interactions - but I'm trying to mostly keep them to one-to-one relationships to avoid precisely the kind of buggy nested mess that guardian bleeds used to be. ;)
-Vastin
Thank you Vastin , this is all really exciting. I agree with Siip , this needs to affect all tank classes.
A nerf on force taunts is needed for sure , but it's gonna have a huge impact on the tanking players.
I am not sure challenge is the first candidate for a nerf. The single target force taunts are far more overpowered for boss aggro.
I believe you should start with threat mechanics in general , the threat multipliers are bloated imo.
A system where you force taunt a mob on 90% and stays stuck on your forever can never be good right ?
I understand there is no time for that though.
I am hoping for a nerf on single target force taunts first and then touch challenge. Especially not the cooldown. Targets could use a nerf , but not less than 10 targets... ( -5 than on live )
A fair point. Thank you for the update, it's very much appreciated!Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
If there are any specific tests or parses you want seen, please let us know in advance! I'll be spending as much time on BR as possible to document and test the changes.
Edit: Provide an update on other traits and skills I've listed previously, please! It matters a lot in future planning for us players. Also, if it's not a bother, can you rename the legacy "Reactive Parry Damage" to "Parry Responses Damage"? It's hugely misleading, as Reactive Parry is a (useless) talent in the tree, while parry responses are quite good.
To me this seems worthless, we already have -15% on stagger and if we are dps for a group will always be attacking from behind so this buff will always be up (do these even stack together?), This debuff is also not effected by Insult or Radiate, an inc damage debuff would be better here, be it armour/mits/crit def maybe even inc healing as i dont think we have any way to access this debuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Fray the edge should have 1s base taunt duration. +5 from legacy. 6s duration seems more than generous on 10s CD skill. Or 15/20s cooldown and same duration as now.Quote:
Originally Posted by BotLike
Also I want to make sure everyone gets you mean taunt multipliers, not damage threat multipliers being too strong.
But yeah as some have said, nerfs to AoE taunts needs to be one go pass to all classes if guardian gets one. beorning is ok to leave as it's now before major revamp, since it simply can't produce any kind of threat on its own and it's such joke of a tank even if it has unlimited aggro targets, nobody takes them serious lol.
Ah, I did totally forget about the Stagger debuff, and its true I wouldn't want them both stacking. <sigh>Quote:
Originally Posted by -Spunkie-
Back to the drawing board. Ok, I'll retool it in some manner. :P
EDIT: Ok the hell with it. Overwhelm now just upgrades Deep Wound into Terrible Wound (which is a separate stack from deep wound). Needless to say, Terrible Wound does fairly horrific damage. I may tweak it at some point to have a -heal% component or something amusing like that, but I'm out of time to play with it for now.
-Vastin
Re: Tank AoE Taunt, yes we've discussed this as a general change to tanks, so wardens and captains will hopefully see some similar changes shortly, though I don't know if they'll all go in simultaneously, as time grows short for this particular pass.
Beornings will not be touched in this pass due to time constraints, but their threat mechanics will certainly be addressed when I get to them, which SHOULD be soon.
-Vastin
Why? Haven't you done enough to Guardian's AOE ability? Did you know that prior to imbuement, we had 10 targets on melee AOE skills? Is that being further reduced from 5 to 3 or 2 with imbued weapons? Turbine already let the cat out of the bag by changing threat mechanics. We don't have Litany of Defiance. Groups don't wait for you to build aggro. Tactical threat mechanics were fun, but I'll tell you what's not: having threat be based entirely on skill damage. You can keep your damage buffs. I never wanted to do damage while I'm tanking. But I get it, you don't want there to be any tactical element to the class.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Also, depending on how hard you nerf us (and to reiterate, our AOE ability has already been nerfed several times since Helm's Deep came out), other tanks will become plainly superior. Wardens can hit 10 targets with their taunt and have multiple gambits that hit 10 targets (which is more than Guardians). A Champion will have 10-13 targets on many skills. Why should you need two tanks, a support, and a healer in a 6man? And most raids already benefit from having two tanks, including Abyss. First, second, and third boss on T2 are run with two tanks. On most trash pulls a captain tank assists me with trolls, Watcher, or Kingsguard whatever it is. Do you want Warden tanks to engage the 10-target horde and Guardians to off-tank? Why are you changing the fundamental role we have had for years? I'm going to wait to see the changes, but if the idea is to have Guardians with 3 melee targets and 7 Challenge targets, I'm out. That's not the class I've been playing since Helm's Deep came out. That wasn't the class I played before Helm's Deep either, you'd need to STOP removing what tactical threat elements exist and reintroduce tactical and threat-over-time elements that existed before. I like tanking big groups of mobs and you've already intruded on my ability to do that enough. I like hitting them in the face with Shield-smash and watching their smug faces get stunned. If I can't do that, well I guess being a main tank was fun while it lasted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Wouldn´t it be easier to remove the aggro transmission from the challenge and Fray the edge?
To keep the targets the same and increase the targets of Shield Spott?
In addition, an increase in damage and damage threat multipliers?
Like in the old days ?
A formula such as
Guard threat = DD threat
1x Base Dmg + 3x threat = 1x DD Dmg
100% mastery + 3x threat = 400% mastery
Reduce the aggro transmission from Engage to 1.3x
That would have the effect of not just having moral builds.
And you also always have to fight for the Aggro at Single Boss
Yes. I'm currently in the process of converting this to essentially match the AoE Damage legacy found on Imbued weapons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedangod
I considered simply reducing it, but target bonuses are considerably harder to balance around - and as some of you may have guessed, we're gradually trying to phase out dependence on non-imbued LIs, by equalizing the bonuses of the two versions when the opportunities to do so arise.
Maintaining both the imbued/non-imbued LI systems is quite time consuming, and the data structure behind the older LI's is EXTREMELY cumbersome and difficult to work with. Thus we're trying to gradually move to a position were we'll eventually be able to shift everyone over to the 'imbued' version and effectively phase out the old system without causing anyone too much anguish.
-Vastin
I'm gonna be blunt on this - you're going to brake Guardian class if you go live with this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
As others very good guardians already have stated you have to start reworking tank lines by this order:
1) Rework threat mechanic from bottom so that Guards could hold aggro without force taunts. At the moment it's impossible.
2) Reduce force taunt threat multiplier, at the moment it's around 8x-9x
3) Remove +5 Challenge targets legacy from unimbued LI belt or at least make LI swapping impossible in-combat (i personally don't understand why it's still possible)
3) After above changes are made then you could start tweaking force taunts targets and cooldowns (starting with single target taunts (Fray The Edge and Engage) not Challenge). Challenge should be the last taunt you touch. And yes if you reduce challenge targets all other tanks AoE taunts should be reduced as well. AoE tanking is at the moment primary reason why Guardians are sought after.
Oh nice, so we might be able to have 4 bleeds on at a time, this should definatley increase single target dps (which seemed low to me) :D, if Deeper Wound can increase the pulses on this new bleed would be nice so we can maintain the bleeds most of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
On the Challenge side of things, remove the targets from Challenge the Darkness not from the skill itself (from the skill would hurt yellow guards too much) and buff the trait with something to make up for the loss. increase cooldown to 3mins.
possible buffs for Challenge the Darkness
- shield smash reduces the cooldown of challenge by 2seconds for each target hit
- challange reduces targets resistance rating (could also change the guardians resistance li to increase this number)
- +5% B/P/E for 10 seconds
EDIT
With this talk of threat/taunt changes was comparing live to beta and while we have gained dps on our melee skills (almost double) we have lost damage on our shield skills (20k shield smash down to 15k), most likely caused by the loss of the second relic (and shield use rank not working?) I think shield skills would need a 20-25% dps increase to bring them back up to what they are on live, without this I think holding threat from skills alone might be difficult.
Not really liking this one! hate bleeds not spreading! overwhelm is rubbish too sorry,
single target is ok for guardian but i really do prefer the live guardian atm, as bad as it is! trying to take AOE from us is a bad move
i feel the problems are within traits RADIATE and INSULT TO INJURY you could have adjusted them and left everything else
if not i would like to see war chant with bleed spread in red with longer cd ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Thank you for listening to us, Vastin,
I have discussed this with Guardians on my server and all of them were sad that you had been planning to remove this skill.
None of them had contributed to this thread because they didn't believe that anything they said could change the dev's mind anyway.
I'm so glad that you listen to us players for feedback.
By putting back the knockdown skill, you will be winning a whole lot of fans, starting with myself.
As some have already said, regarding AOE targets, the number should be increased to match that of wardens and champs, rather than decreased.
Personally, I don't think you should start changing threat mechanics (which is blue line) but save a reworking of blue line for a later date after red line is perfected.
The increase of DPS in red line isn't going to help generate threat because we don't tank in red line.
Unless you increase the DPS of the base skills substantially, blue line threat won't be affected.
Personally, I think Guardians had the most interesting set of skills for threat generation when L75 was cap.
We had a greater variety of threat generation skills to choose from and this required strategy to know which one to use in each situation.
My favorite skill was Challenge the Darkness, which put the Guardian at the top of the threat hierarchy, and drew aggro from a large radius (I think 15m)
When tanking, the guardian's primary role is to hold aggro.
If we lose the ability to do this, the class will be broken.
I collected some thoughts... Now I guess the design philosophy of the Guardian is that it’s single target DPS, single (or duo) target tanking when the class has excelled at mass target tanking since Moria and mass target DPS from Helm’s Deep to imbuement. Two of our three traitlines are tank specs, aggro management is what we do. The phrasing of “Guardian AoE Target numbers are generally being reduced” suggests our other AOE skills, like Vexing Blow and Shield-smash, are also being reduced. It is simply unfair, and frankly absurd, to put Guardian AOE in the worst position it has been in since before Moria. Even if you were to also nerf other classes’ AOE taunt so they hit as many targets as Guardians (by the way, if yellow Champions ever become relevant in endgame content again that’s going to be stupid), Guardians would be in the worst situation to deal with AOE tanking. Wardens and Champions would be superior with their AOE abilities and group utility, such as mitigation debuffs and outgoing damage debuffs. Captains would blow them out of the water in most circumstances with equivalent defenses, in-combat rez, target marks, and group heals. If you were looking for a raid tank, why would you take a Guardian over a Captain when they can handle equivalent amounts of adds? The only benefit Guardians have is Shield-Wall, a pretty good corruption removal, their mass tanking ability, and 10% mitigation bonus, which looks less useful as other classes gain similar buffs and higher morale pools, which Captains already have. But I admit transitioning us to single target tanking is consistent with the theme of the Guardian.
Currently on live with an imbued LI and 89 trait points we have :-
Whirling Retaliation 5 targets
Vexing blow 5 targets
Sweeping Cut 7 targets
War Chant 3 targets
Shield Smash 8 Targets
Challenge 10 targets
This is a red line sword and board build. This is NOT massive AOE by any stretch of the imagination. If you really want to make tanking more interesting, reduce the number of challenge targets, but please please leave the damage skills alone, the only thing you will do by reducing damage targets is make landscape more tedious and time consuming.
Points to note, reduce challenge targets in red line, as the skill is rarely, if ever, used; add them as a passive in blue and / or yellow. If you run with a 2H in red, then you lose the 8 targets from SS so are even further hobbled.
Red Guardian is a single target focused DPS spec. The current number of targets are somewhat unnecessary for its purpose so there's no real loss there.
Reducing the number of AoE targets only really risks upsetting Blue/Yellow as these are the lines concerned with handling multiple enemies at once. As such it would be appreciated if these two lines could retain 5 targets on AoE skills at the very least with maybe one or two reaching 8. Any fewer and most pulls in old FI content would end up being exceptionally annoying to manage.
Ok. Done. Here's what it looks like for now.
- Put knockdown back on Brutal Charge.
- Prey on the Weak now procs addt'l damage when any skill crits against a target with Slashing Wound. (Unfortunately these show up in parses as some kind of totally generic damage?)
- Greatly increased general Guardian instant skill damage (varies by skill)
- Overpower converts Deep Wound to Terrible Wound (higher intensity bleed, stacks with deep wound)
- Modestly decreased base bleed damage and LI Bleed bonus.
- Added bleed damage bonus to deeper wounds - affects Deep Wound and Terrible Wound.
- Reduced base bleed duration of some bleeds slightly.
- Reduced AoE Targets on Challenge, and increased its cooldown.
- Non imbued AoE Target legacy updated to match imbued AoE DPS legacy (grants additional dmg rather than targets).
- Increased number of base targets on several Guardian AoE Skills.
Kind of working some things in at the last minute here, so... probably some new bugs as well. <sigh>
I'll get started on fixing those shortly.
-Vastin
Vastin can you not convince Friendly Hat as to the value of communication in this process.
We can follow the progress with you but elsewhere we're getting nothing and it could be a right egit being heard for all we know.
Thanks for your considerable efforts. I will reserve the right to change opinion once it hits live ofc. :)
Mac
I get that the goal is to make it so raids can't get by with just one tank. Not sure why we would complain. If raids need more tanks its just less unemployed guards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Replacement for Tactical DPS (Shield use) on Guard belt is?
Concerning the relic (not shield use), Physical Mastery and Critical Rating relic would seem most useful for Guardian if aggro is to be based on physical damage skills. I think it's backwards, but prior to Tactical Damage Rating relic I was using a relic with +Partial Parry and Evade Mitigation. It's extremely minor but there isn't much else to do. I also wondered about the effects of a +Outgoing Healing and Critical Rating relic, if that affected any of our self-heals, but most are percentage-based. What we're looking at is a DPS class that wears a shield and uses taunts.
Maybe the next content update will have something.
EXCELLENT! Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Great idea - look forward to seeing itQuote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Excellent! This was sorely needed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Because Challenge is the main agrro skill for guardians, if you nerf it, you will need to create a new AoE aggro skill to complement it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
This would be welcome, as the more skills we have to choose from, the more skill and strategy is required, making it more fun.
There are many situations where the guardian is the sole tank (eg. 3 and 6 man instances) and we NEED to be able to hold aggro on many targets.
Watching your healer die while your tiny selection of aggro skills are all on CD is NOT fun.
Making new LI's has me triggered, i am so sick of sewers!!! How about Guards after this update can decon their LI's and all scrolls and crystals are returned stacked and bound to character!!???
My vote is for Incoming Healing, as this will always be useful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
Here's a couple of my ideas
Brutal Assault:
It seems that DPS now revolves around the use of Brutal Assault, a skill that could do with a shorter animation.
Also, as someone who plays from Australia, I have a gripe with the Brutal Assault refresh mechanic. The skill only refreshes AFTER the parry-chain skill has been fully executed (if the refresh procs, that is). If I had nice ping, this wouldn't matter, however with a steady 200 or so ping, i'm left hanging for roughly half a second waiting to see whether or not brutal assault refreshed. I'm not sure if this is possible, but it would help immensely if the skill refreshes DURING the animation of thrust/retaliation/TTK etc. That way i'm not slowing myself down.
Prey on the weak:
The additional damage on crit sounds nice, but i'd really like the ongoing and reliable healing that scales with how many mobs you're fighting to return, even if it is weaker.
Hammer down:
If brutal charge is regaining its knockdown, I'd prefer the old finisher version of hammer down to come back. Increased damage on low morale targets, and refreshes if it is the killing blow. A satisfying skill to repeat, and a unique one for Guardians capstone skill in DPS line.
Radiate:
I haven't been able to have radiate work at all, is there any reason it doesn't work in red now?
Some other minor ideas:
The 3 bleed skills all have red icons, and two of them feature a sword pointing up & to the left, so I propose a minor change to some skill icons, as seen below.
https://i.imgur.com/Jfd76ts.png
Contrasting colours like this would make the tiny icons below enemy HP easy to distinguish.
blue = ST, longer lasting.
red = high dmg
yellow = AoE
It'd also spice up the skill bars a little.
EDIT: One more tiny thing, not sure if this is where to ask for it, but could we get an option for guardian to display their shields on their back instead of on the arm?
Hmm, another AE taunt. What could we call it... Challenge the Darkness :)
I loved those days... Trash pulls in the Rift, you messed up the pather pull and it's bringing two other groups with it. CtD and Pledge up and kite backwards around a rock. Heroic.
That was the old tank, you had all the skills and some you'd not use for months but they were there and ready to use when it all went pear shaped. But now it's all about a costly trait to invest in and you can't for something that you'd rarely use.
Mac
Any chance that Imbued LI 2h passives will be seeing an increase any time soon? Red Guardians can't dual wield so they're kinda pressured into using 2h weapons to maximise DPS which results in them missing out on a lot of stats that an offhand would normally give them.
Perhaps make a whole new trait for challenge, make a capstone. Nerf max targets on challenge to 5 and AOE to 5-10m. Have trait increase the targets up to 5 and AOE by 50%.
This way, if you want a better challenge, you're forced to go deep blue. Have it also scale at 5 ranks (Make it replace that useless eyesore called Break Ranks)
Kinda kills yellow a bit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Decrepify
Sorry to say this, but how can you kill something that's already dead?Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedangod
Edit: I really wish yellow had better traits and overall usefulness outside of griefing in the moors. It sounds like a such an interesting line and I would love to play it competitively. But yeah....
Technically yellow is the DPSy tank traitline so it really should be coming out of this change of focus better than blue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Decrepify
Admittedly I'm biased and just want to switch my Guards default tank spec. Yellow is just so much more interesting than the dumb "I'm basically invincible" premise of Blue.
Agreed, completely. You feel like as you make an actual impact with disables and debuffs rather than with just standing there and cycling block responses and Guards Ward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joedangod
Still, yellow is riddled with useless traits, some of the talents are so pretty bad. Not to mention they still didn't fix Mark healing you after you pass over some talents.
If Radiate worked again at 100%, and they fixed the double debuff stacking bug, it might be interesting to run in certain instances as an offtank. But currently, I just don't see it....
So, and excuse me if I am wrong in that, the thread started as a revamp and boost in the Guardian dps line. Then somehow the coversation diverted into aoe taunts and the future need (?) of more tanks in raid, so we came to the point that it is anounced that challenge will be nerfed, and then captain's and warden's aoe taunt will be nerfed, but not now, maybe in the future. So, only guardian's aoe taunt will be nerfed for now. Am I understanding this correctly??
To summarise (at least in my mind): They say, Yes we' ll boost guardian's dps, BUT for now we will nerf his aoe taunt too. And we will do it only for guardian atm, cause other classes' aoe taunts will be nerfed in future. And btw the only class who really needs a significant boost in tanking line (beorning) will not be touched now too. Maybe in future too.
It does not sound right guys. It does not.
I'm actually not sure why these traitline changes aren't a bit more focused with them tackling a specific role at a time rather than specific classes. It's gonna be kinda odd to see Beorning potentially take the place of strongest healer after these minstrel changes and RK's are probably going to drop out of use in raid content until they get some DPS increases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zahu
Still, there did need to be class balance work done at some point and it's better off being done now whilst we don't really have any fresh group content to do. Hopefully things will have been normalised between classes before U23 Instance Cluster hits.
I'm sorry but as someone who has been maining a Guard since day 1 with the purpose of tankimg I cannot get behind changes that affect it for the worst in my opinion. The reasons for this are aa follows:
1.I cannot trust you guys with making changes to complex mechanics such as tanking. I hope that you will take the necessary time to make sure the changes applied will work appropriately(fingers crossed) but I just cannot forget Helm's Deep launch when force taunts were broken and tanking guards were left scrambling to understand why such changes to a perfectly functional tanking process were made.
2.The premise of tanking through DPS with increased multipliers on skills is plainly put not as enjoyable as pre Helm's Deep guardian tanking was. I and many others enjoy tanking now as well but its nothing compared to what it was before. If you want to steer the class away from relying on Force Taunts(which we have been asking for a long time) then pre Helm's Deep guardian is the way to go.
3.Nerfing challenge targets alongside a general nerf to AoE targets will hurt tanking a substantially. The community will simply adjust by looking for the next class that tank masses of mobs reliably (warden). In order to make instanced content more reliant on double tanks, changes need to be made on the instance first and only THEN on the classes.
4. I don't like the fact that AoE targets is being removed from the unimbued LI. If you want to make people rely less on unimbued Lis then make it so you cannot switch Lis, in combat(as others have mentioned). Also make Imbued Lis more attractive. Guardian tanking weapon is a complete joke, totally abandoning superior tanking legacies such as Guardians Ward duration for more DPS legacies?
If you are so inclined on nerfing challenge however I have a few changes to propose that would mediate the nerf much better than steering us towards more dps based threat(yikes):
a)Give us back pre Helm's Deep Shield of Fire trait(increased threat from Shield Taunt + increased targets)
b)Make Vexing Blow generate additional threat once again(one of the skills driven to obsoletion in terms of tanking with Helm's Deep)
c)Pre Helm's Deep Litany of Defiance. Once literally the vanguard of Guardian tanking, driven into total obsoletion with Helm's Deep changes. Truly one of the saddest changes made to Guardian tanking.
Oh and one more thing, the current number of targets on AoE skills.is.laughable. You cannot expect us to tank AoE with a nerfed force taunt and 5 targets on many melee skills. Although its left to be seen how it's going to work, I would be surprised if Guardians don't start to struggle with a healer's aggro on any pull including more than 5-6 mobs.
How the hell did a 'don't give a damn' red line buffing for guardians go to completely rewriting the core mechanics of the class in its primary role? How about you do not release your utterly flawed theory and actually test your theory first? That means you, VASTIN, and a few of your SSG team actually go play your changes on test server in a raid with a top geared champions rks and hunters and then come back to us and tell us how changing aoe targets and challenge on tank guardians work for controlling a modest number of targets with some actual thought. These changes you think are neat are not going to work out like you think they will, they never do and SSG/Turbine have never been able to admit they screw up and fix something immediately, no you will let it sit broken and screwed up and let more people leave the game because they are tired of the nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vastin
We had a brief period when we couldn't switch LIs in combat and Turbine got a lot of hate for that move.
Far too many people at the top end have switch LIs they have put considerable effort into, time cash and resources, refund anyone?
For a while I kept a maxed out targets non-imbued belt but gave up on it when the Shield Rank fell far behind my main belts with every LI increase. Now look at us...
We have hunters not maxing melee dps LIs, minis and rks with LIs that have little to offer using starlit crystals on. And we have a belt that used to help at least the tank spec.
Perhaps the belt LI should get a revamped Shield damage/Shield threat and a 1%-5%+ crit that we don't have as a trait as guardians when many classes do. Possibly tactical classes can get some love with their out of spec LI's healing/tact damage.
Mac
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eloriel
Yeah, i agree. There is no need to change amount of challenge targets or CD of it, these changes are too RNG made, when you start changing tank classes you need to first know how it will affect other classes and raids, i can already say that Abyss trash pulls will be really hard to tank with nerfed amount of targets. Please test your theory first and test how you will tank against top geared DPSers before you force us to test it for you.
Vastin, please focus on the actual problems of balance and not on random things you think will improve game balance.
Nerffed targets isn't going to be issue. There's is always 2 tanks to choose from in the raid, even if they could be playing other spec in some trash pulls. Just revert to tank and there you go. But what matters is if they go through with that change it needs to happen to all tanks at the same time. If we are being honest This is total joke:
https://i.imgur.com/3aa1OHk.png
It's very much true tanks are far too potent on AoE tanking but changes need to happen to all classes or it's no point rolling forward with this change at this point.
I actually think the reduced Challenge targets and increased CD will make the trash pulls more interesting for the group, Far from undoable. You have an off-tank with the only job to give bubble to main tank at start and put up defensive buffs for the fellowship, and occasionaly tanking 1 target who could easily use some more action with pulling the mobs who got away from main tank's aggro. It would also give a reason for LM to actually stay alert during trash pulls with their CC, at least against the ones who are not immune.Quote:
Originally Posted by elzeqq
No. With the planned nerf, it will indeed be undoable. Also, which mobs can you CC except assasins/zealots??? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf2x
Well in most pulls you actually clear, there are more Zealots than any other type of mob, so I don't see how it can be overlooked. But to answer your question; Defiler, Slave Culler, Soldier, Tracker, Maddened Nurnoth.Quote:
Originally Posted by elzeqq
Oh wait, you skip the pulls some of those mobs are in anyway...