Zon's Guardian Guide for Update 22.2+

[Zonflux]

I have been working on a new Guardian Guide for Update 22.2 and forward which will be hosted on Google Docs.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

The reasoning for hosting it on Google Docs is for easier maintenance, viewers have the ability to easily comment and make suggestions, and if someone is a big enough contributor I can add them to the Credits or make them an Editor or Co-Author in the guide. My long-term vision with this guide is to hopefully eventually one day transform it into more of a community guide that can be frequently updated, and in the event of a major Update such as a big Class Update a Duplicate Copy of the guide can easily be made where the previous one can be kept for its relevancy for the previous Updates.

There are still several pages missing from the guide along with some supplemental videos but I feel as though the guide is far enough along that there are components of it which I feel could be useful to the community.

As the guide gets updated I will append a Change Log to this post which will keep the forum community up-to-date.



What's New?

2018-08-09 21:15 EST

• So my gear has finally gotten good enough to take some screenshots of so I have made what I feel is a fairly important update to the guide. In the chapter Armour, Jewelry and Essences under section Tank – Raid Tier 2 I have posted several links to photos of gear to get your Guardian Tier 2 Ready Raid Tank. Note that everything listed here is completely achievable without ever attempting the Abyss of Mordath raid on Tier 2, all you need is Ally/Kindred status with certain factions and lots of Ash and Lake/River Tokens.

2018-08-01 17:00 EST

• Approved and Rejected various comments and suggestions.
• Revised text along with trying to keep text to a minimal (since I have a tendacy to go blah blah blah).
• Adjusted build target values to be more inline with the current meta.
• Added 3 pages of content to the Battle Strategy section, including a cool skills range illustration.
• Changed the skill rotations slightly based on my own personal experiences while tanking and as dps.

2018-07-19 14:40 EST

• All build screenshots have been replaced with mobile-friendly textual tables. If you prefer to view the screenshot you can click on a link below each table for the corresponding image.
• Most builds have been modified to some degree to reflect the larger consensus of what most Guardians are using. Hopefully I am closer to the overall consensus of Guardians as I would like the builds to reflect the current meta while still reflecting my own personal play style. Feel free to check each build out.
• Target stats for Damage Dealer (PvE | PvMP) and Tanking have been updated to reflect attainable gear and essences from tier 1 barter quartermasters. I am not listed gated tier 2 gear as this guide is more meant as a guide to get tier 2 ready and solo survivability so there min-max values for stats should hopefully reflect so and provide a bare absolute minimum for getting accepted into a tier 2 challenge raid without getting shunned or trolled.

[Oelle]

an openly commentable guide... cool
I wonder how much work it will be to work through all comments as soon as its completed.

[Zonflux]

an openly commentable guide... cool
I wonder how much work it will be to work through all comments as soon as its completed.

I get an email notification on bulk comments so basically whenever I am available to go through them. I've already gone through some of the comments. It's a really good heart-touching feeling seeing other community members wanting to contribute so it makes me very proud of our community. I'll try to add people's names to the Credits if they let me know who they are since most people are logging in as Anonymous. I'll add your name Oelle.

*Edit: All suggestions have now been incorporated! I'm hoping to add writing into the Battle Strategy section next.

[Cordovan]

Nice work!

[Marancil]

Excellent stuff!!

[Decrepify]

Well done, Guardian-brother!

[Oddessia]

This is great, thank you!

[Passerby]

Thank you again for your excellent and ongoing work. I've played on-and-off since launch, and after "off" times, your guides have been exceptionally helpful!

[Zonflux]

I have gone through the majority of comments and suggestions.

There are still a couple of unresolved comments which are in debate such as regarding Stoic Bubble Strength.

Otherwise my plans for tomorrow are to begin writing the Battle Strategy section.

[Martinuil]

Many thanks for this! After the last update I was looking for exactly such a guide...

While having a look at it, I saw there are already quite some comments. Hopefully you can keep up to integrate and reply to them...

[Greatorex]

Cheers @Zonflux. I just came back to the game and am levelling up (72 at the moment) so your info will be great help for me.

[Gewitter]

Just want to add my voice of thanks. This is a great idea and I really appreciate the effort you have and are continuing to put into this Zonflux.

[Alewyze]

As a player of two guardians I definitely appreciate your work here. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on the shortcomings of yellow line. I find it pretty good though I am not at end game yet. Of course with so many trait points available I suppose all builds are hybrid.

[Zonflux]

As a player of two guardians I definitely appreciate your work here. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on the shortcomings of yellow line. I find it pretty good though I am not at end game yet. Of course with so many trait points available I suppose all builds are hybrid.

Yellow has the ability to debuff the enemy mob but Radiate was nerfed in a previous patch as was Insult to Injury because of the Red tree and nothing was ever done to help Yellow out. I feel as though those nerfs should only have been active while specialized in Red.

Blue specialization gets critical defense buffs, a small fellowship mitigation buff, Juggernaut which is incredibly powerful for avoiding damage and Block heals. Further Blue tanks are able to dip into Bring on the Pain and Redirect from Yellow making them extremely powerful tanks.

On the other hand Yellow tanks dipping into Blue doesn't really make Yellow feel any more powerful.

As it stands Yellow tanks are very underwhelming and are only used situationally such as kiting a mob or boss.

99% of the time you will most likely choose to specialization in Blue rather than Yellow.

[Zonflux]

I am going to be changing the permissions on the guide as follows;

Public Anonymous can view the guide; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

People interested in adding comments and suggestions to the guide are welcome to send me a message and I will add approved members on an individual basis. Once a user is signed into Google Docs using a valid email address then can request comment access from the drop-down menu near the top left that says View only. I had to make the decision for this change due to one individual so far.

[Fraushgrish2]

The tanking trait trees arnt done very well, perfect tanking trait tree looks like this ---->https://lotrottp.lotrostatus.com/l.php?c=8T4 -----

The finesse number is exaggerated, you can have 0 finesse on guard and still tank fine

Your one handed wep shouldn't be imbued as you gain nothing from imbuement, but gain charge duration and guards ward duration (not that thats insanly important it just reduces the grind and the smart thing to do)

Other then that everything seems great

[Kazabooboo]

The tanking trait trees arnt done very well, perfect tanking trait tree looks like this ---->https://lotrottp.lotrostatus.com/l.php?c=8T4 -----

The finesse number is exaggerated, you can have 0 finesse on guard and still tank fine

Your one handed wep shouldn't be imbued as you gain nothing from imbuement, but gain charge duration and guards ward duration (not that thats insanly important it just reduces the grind and the smart thing to do)

All 3 advices are wrong.

As for this guide , i am surprised of how accurate it is , well done! I'd do some minor corrections in trait trees but you already did a good job ,
so i'd mark this as close to perfect : )
Also , very well said about break ranks x D

Moving on , a few things you might want to update :

1) Shield the People blue trait line bonus can also work for the entire raid.
2) Relentless assault is a better trait point filler than tireless defender.
You need more B/P events than you did before , for catch a breath spam , and some bosses don't grant you many of them.
On trash pulls and some other bosses it's irrelevant ofc , but so is tireless defender for all the content , unless you have perma shield wall on , and that's a maybe.
3) Juggernaut is not god-mode for some boss fights. It's actually worth dropping it alltogether sometimes for fully traited redirect.
4) A minor thing , but 'to the rescue' trait is good for big battles. You basically sprint , get the buff , and spam warchant. You don't get in combat , you don't lose the buff and all enemies get critted. Buggy , i know , but the whole game is a mess anyway so might as well note it.
5) On your 2H dps build , i strongly suggest swapping the legacies vexing blow and might for stamp cooldown and brutal assault.
6) Whirling retaliation is bad for tanking because of long animation and so-so damage , so drop the legacy on 1h tanking weapon and swap with stamp cooldown and remove the suggestion underneath , this one is not really debatable x D
7) Taunt duration is an absolute must have on tanking belt , there is no debate here either. I understand your thinking behind it , time it well and you don't need duration and all but in practice that never works so well. So duration is must have. Both guardian wards B/P buffs are so-so nowadays , i'd drop them both or 1 + vitality for taunt duration and light damage. Light damage helps for initial aggro warchant , which is priceless even for tanking.
8) An extra 15% incoming healing from rating , is hands down , the best way to go for tanking. It outplays morale stacking for any content that matters , especially because of morale damage concept.

Thanks for your guide : - )

[Fraushgrish2]

All 3 advices are wrong.

care to say why?

[darkjeedei]

All 3 advices are wrong.

As for this guide , i am surprised of how accurate it is , well done! I'd do some minor corrections in trait trees but you already did a good job ,
so i'd mark this as close to perfect : )
Also , very well said about break ranks x D

Moving on , a few things you might want to update :

1) blue trait line bonus can also work for the entire raid.
2) Relentless assault is a better trait point filler than tireless defender.
You need more B/P events than you did before , for catch a breath spam , and some bosses don't grant you many of them.
On trash pulls and some other bosses it's irrelevant ofc , but so is tireless defender for all the content , unless you have perma shield wall on , and that's a maybe.
3) Juggernaut is not god-mode for some boss fights. It's actually worth dropping it alltogether sometimes for fully traited redirect.
4) A minor thing , but 'to the rescue' trait is good for big battles. You basically sprint , get the buff , and spam warchant. You don't get in combat , you don't lose the buff and all enemies get critted. Buggy , i know , but the whole game is a mess anyway so might as well note it.
5) On your 2H dps build , i strongly suggest swapping the legacies vexing blow and might for stamp cooldown and brutal assault.
6) Whirling retaliation is bad for tanking because of long animation and so-so damage , so drop the legacy on 1h tanking weapon and swap with stamp cooldown and remove the suggestion underneath , this one is not really debatable x D
7) Taunt duration is an absolute must have on tanking belt , there is no debate here either. I understand your thinking behind it , time it well and you don't need duration and all but in practice that never works so well. So duration is must have. Both guardian wards B/P buffs are so-so nowadays , i'd drop them both or 1 + vitality for taunt duration and light damage. Light damage helps for initial aggro warchant , which is priceless even for tanking.
8) An extra 15% incoming healing from rating , is hands down , the best way to go for tanking. It outplays morale stacking for any content that matters , especially because of morale damage concept.

Thanks for your guide : - )

Explain why they are wrong?

Regarding your point:

Point 3 - I strongly disagree, I play guardian and tank abyss pretty much every week in most competent kinship on my server.
You definitelly want to have Juggernaut on ID 1 and ID 2, ID 3 is useless because it does not work.
Point 7 - I definitelly wouldn't go for light damage legacy because your aggro is really not gonna get affected that much.

Initially how to save the most time is running in pack and doing war chant -> shield-blow -> shield-taunt -> shield smash for 3s CC and then challenge after, 1 well timed challenge is all you really need.

Also after looking on the trait tree linked, I need to agree that it is the most viable trait tree to tank any endgame content right now. After tanking abyss/erebor cluster at lvl 115 with this trait tree I need to admit that this trait tree was the least problematic one.


Almost everything what you say in the guardian guide is incorrect, i'd strogly suggest to rework your trait trees and LIs decisions because they are tremendously average at most right now.

[Kazabooboo]

care to say why?

Yes.

The tanking trait trees arnt done very well, perfect tanking trait tree looks like this ---->https://lotrottp.lotrostatus.com/l.php?c=8T4 -----

You forgot to trait warrior's fortitude in blue , i am assuming this is a mistake.
You traited stoic which is an absolute trash trait for various reasons.
You didn't trait turn the tables , i agree its situational , but compared to stoic it's a million times better.
You didn't max demoralizing anthem , which has a slight penalty on the cooldown reductions.
You have guardian's ward tactics full , no 'perfect tanking' trait tree has that , unless the gear is bad so in that way 'perfect' is an irony.
With current gear ( even the just good version ) even rank 1 can be overkill.

The finesse number is exaggerated, you can have 0 finesse on guard and still tank fine

Whoever tanks with 0 finesse nowadays , makes his life hard for no reason.
Challenge spam is greatly reduced because of 1 min , so you need finesse to land warchant and shield smash for aggro.
Also finesse is good for building fortification fast landing ward and smashing stab.
If you want to have 2 builds , 1 with 0 finesse for boss fights be my guest , as long as you don't have to taunt a single trash mob other than the boss.
In that case , yes , it could be worth it for stacking some extra morale , but imo it's a total waste of resources.
Most scenarios ''need'' finesse.

Your one handed wep shouldn't be imbued as you gain nothing from imbuement, but gain charge duration and guards ward duration (not that thats insanly important it just reduces the grind and the smart thing to do)

Charge duration can easily be used by swapping weapons.
Guardian's ward duration is a luxury trait , not needed , just rotate ward properly. ( 3 sec cd , 10 sec duration by default )
Non-imbued has a penalty in DPS , which means penalty for initial aggro on trash pulls.

[Kazabooboo]

Point 3 - I strongly disagree, I play guardian and tank abyss pretty much every week in most competent kinship on my server.
You definitelly want to have Juggernaut on ID 1 and ID 2, ID 3 is useless because it does not work.

It doesn't work well on sagrog either.
This includes trash.
Most of the damage comes from boss aoe , wound ticks and the trash corruptions , until those are removed that is.

On first boss it's OK , but assuming no one messes up with devoted , fully traited redirect results in less TPS. Try it.

Point 7 - I definitelly wouldn't go for light damage legacy because your aggro is really not gonna get affected that much.

Fair enough , that's optional i guess. The ward B/P are not as strong as they used to be either though.

[Fraushgrish2]

Yes.

You forgot to trait warrior's fortitude in blue , i am assuming this is a mistake.

lol, you want that extra 920 incoming healing, 2% phy mit, 1% block and partial block chance instead of 4/5 vicious rebuttal? To my mistake, that website hasnt been updated since u20, and has 88 trait points instead of 89, so i left 1 out so when it combines with the 89th trate point you can go 4/5 rebuttal

You traited stoic which is an absolute trash trait for various reasons.

Care to say those reasons? its very useful i find in trash pulls and as a sort of "second cd" as the buble is 60k, it last a decent length i find.

You didn't trait turn the tables , i agree its situational , but compared to stoic it's a million times better.

Disagreed compared to stoic its complete garbage.

You didn't max demoralizing anthem , which has a slight penalty on the cooldown reductions.

Not sure what you mean by that...

You have guardian's ward tactics full , no 'perfect tanking' trait tree has that , unless the gear is bad so in that way 'perfect' is an irony.

I agree, but its the only traited cause i needed to advance to get the better traits and honestly its the best trait there everything else is completely useless, to add on to that that trait doesnt even work the tool tip says 13k increase while the real number is only 2-3k

With current gear ( even the just good version ) even rank 1 can be overkill.

Whoever tanks with 0 finesse nowadays , makes his life hard for no reason.
Challenge spam is greatly reduced because of 1 min , so you need finesse to land warchant and shield smash for aggro.
Also finesse is good for building fortification fast landing ward and smashing stab.
If you want to have 2 builds , 1 with 0 finesse for boss fights be my guest , as long as you don't have to taunt a single trash mob other than the boss.
In that case , yes , it could be worth it for stacking some extra morale , but imo it's a total waste of resources.
Most scenarios ''need'' finesse.

This is a very common misconception and its completely FALSE, the effects of those wont work sure you may not get a stun, or war chant wont reduce the enemies dmg by 5%, but you still build threat, having finesse is completely pointless since taunts dont get resisted

Charge duration can easily be used by swapping weapons.
Guardian's ward duration is a luxury trait , not needed , just rotate ward properly. ( 3 sec cd , 10 sec duration by default )
Non-imbued has a penalty in DPS , which means penalty for initial aggro on trash pulls.

omgalul, do you really think that the small dmg increase you get from wasting your time getting star lit crystals is worth it? I'm not saying that imbuement is trash and you should immidiatly make a new Li, im just saying for the younger guards out there that you dont need to grind on your sword, as you get ALL THE THINGS THAT AN IMBUED WEP GIVE + MORE

Last question, have you done the raid at t2c? and completed it?

[Decrepify]

...most competent kinship on my server...

Which kin is that?

[Kazabooboo]

lol, you want that extra 920 incoming healing, 2% phy mit

Sorry , stopped reading right there.

2% extra physical mits , results in 6.66% less damage from common ( more if dwarf ) which is present in almost every single fight.

I've done my part here.

For anyone reading this , feel free to listen fraushgrish that traits bolster to rank 5 for more critical defence.
Fine by me ;-d
Just mentioned this now because i forgot about it earlier , you only need 4 ranks to fill.

Goodnight.

[Fraushgrish2]

Sorry , stopped reading right there.

2% extra physical mits , results in 6.66% less damage from common ( more if dwarf ) which is present in almost every single fight.

I've done my part here.

For anyone reading this , feel free to listen fraushgrish that traits bolster to rank 5 for more critical defence.
Fine by me ;-d
Just mentioned this now because i forgot about it earlier , you only need 4 ranks to fill.

Goodnight.

Holy, you spend the entire time raving about redirect and when i deadass said in my comment "To my mistake, that website hasnt been updated since u20, and has 88 trait points instead of 89, so i left 1 out so when it combines with the 89th trate point you can go 4/5 rebuttal"

ye bro 2% more phy mit is worth the loss of 5% more absorbed and nagated dmg.(Also FyI that trait is broken ) You have not done anything but spit false facts, to be fair tho this "that traits bolster to rank 5 for more critical defence." was my fault ive redone that trait tree so many times that i prolly mispressed something while i was trying to speed do my trait tree, but you have a lot of nerve saying that traiting warriors fortitude, nice one G. You could tell that you were a genius when you said slotting finesse makes your life harder it definitely does not, but i doubt you ever tanked anything other then CoS t1 105