If Red Guard DPS were doubled would it still be non-viable?

[Bhoris_they_spider]

Hi, just wondering what people think about this, I reckon if Redline Guard was given a 100% increase in damage it would still be below a RK i.e. Tier 3 damage. What do you reckon and how high have people been able to parse over 3 mins using red line?

[Fermongu]

No. It would have to be 4x, at least.

[BinaryTertiary]

while the damage is laughably bad guardians biggest issue is the traits which are just ... i dont know how to describe them. when the rework happened at u22.2 nobody raised the issue of terrible traits

they can have all the damage they want but guardians would still play sluggishly unless theyre being stream-fed parry responses...good luck with that.

[Joedangod]

when the rework happened at u22.2 nobody raised the issue of terrible traits

We definitely did bring it up a few times but got a bit drowned out by people insisting that "Brutal Charge" was instrumental to the spec and should not be removed under any circumstance.

[BinaryTertiary]

We definitely did bring it up a few times but got a bit drowned out by people insisting that "Brutal Charge" was instrumental to the spec and should not be removed under any circumstance.

whats wrong with brutal charge?

its a pretty good damage buff considering the duration and uptime

how did this home of reactive parry remain?
I tried looking up but there was no mention about it during the rework

thrill battle is such a joke and it was changed recently too
why isnt this a crit chance buff a lot of other traits depend on crits
I saw prey on the weak was meant to be a power restore and somehow that got changed but now its still really bad especially for a capstone talent

[Joedangod]

whats wrong with brutal charge?

It was explicitly the knockdown that Brutal Charge applies. The knockdown was removed in the first round of changes and myself and others recommended that we instead get an actually DPS focused trait to replace it (like a 5% crit chance bonus), other people were highly insistent that the knockdown be restored instead as clearly that's more important for a DPS spec than anything actually damage focused. Still don't understand their rabid love for that knockdown, at the time you could comfortably pick up Cataclysmic Shout for a similar purpose and Shield Smash is still available for a weapon swapping player.

Other suggestions were generally along the lines of "Make Red Warriors Heart function as a DPS cooldown with limited healing" and "Make Prey on the Weak a crit magnitude bonus".

[BinaryTertiary]

cut

id be more than happy if the knockdown and wh healing in red got gutted and replaced with a capable damage option would give guardians a ton of flexibility especially considering how the guardian rotation (when it works) is really engaging and fun

but then again these are the forums and sadly people on the forums are ... i dont know

"Same things that make us laugh, make us cry" - Melvin Harris

[Omen_Kaizer]

Hi, just wondering what people think about this, I reckon if Redline Guard was given a 100% increase in damage it would still be below a RK i.e. Tier 3 damage. What do you reckon and how high have people been able to parse over 3 mins using red line?

If it were literally doubled, yea they'd be rocking and competing with wardens. If an additive +100% bonus to damage, they'd be as bad and maybe worse than RKs.

In U27, I was pulling up to 90k dummy parse on my ####ty no-4set just-rolled red guard. I know other people broke 100k. Now yeah I would have to imagine the spec (not me!) would top out in the 110k area. Considering that on a dummy, red guards get no mit bypasses or reductions, no +10% incoming melee damage debuffs, etc that would be shared in a group setting, I figure as they stand they're about 60% that of a viable dps.

[Chris91]

other people were highly insistent that the knockdown be restored instead as clearly that's more important for a DPS spec than anything actually damage focused.

Wasn't that primarily tanks who liked that trait, because they'd go red, use charge, go blue and then do some difficult add pull in a raid with an aoe skill allowing them to knockdown everything?

[Joedangod]

Wasn't that primarily tanks who liked that trait, because they'd go red, use charge, go blue and then do some difficult add pull in a raid with an aoe skill allowing them to knockdown everything?

Nah, it's pretty redundant for Blue/Yellow as they both have solid access to AoE stuns anyway. Besides "It's good for the other traitlines if you spend a minute traitswapping" is hardly a decent reason to keep an ability. Red is pretty durable as is, it needed damage stuff, not weird utility that it could technically do even without that specific talent.

[Chris91]

Nah, it's pretty redundant for Blue/Yellow as they both have solid access to AoE stuns anyway. Besides "It's good for the other traitlines if you spend a minute traitswapping" is hardly a decent reason to keep an ability. Red is pretty durable as is, it needed damage stuff, not weird utility that it could technically do even without that specific talent.

I still vaguely remember you could use it to cheese knockdown some stuff that was immune to regular stuns. I'm not saying that's a good reason, just speculating that could have been why people wanted to keep it.

[BotLike]

I still vaguely remember you could use it to cheese knockdown some stuff that was immune to regular stuns. I'm not saying that's a good reason, just speculating that could have been why people wanted to keep it.

Yep that's correct.

I also used it a lot in quite a few pulls. I don't see how brutal charge was ever a problem.
Actually i don't see how red guard in general was EVER a problem before they destroyed him 4+ years ago.
They could have nerfed the self heals and stop there but nooooo. Break the entire spec instead , because it was apparently as strong in aoe as champ back then ( a lie btw ).
Then change b/p/e ratings/mechanics and make blue trash too.
Problem solved. Now only a handful play guardian and there's no one to complain.
As for the few that continue to do so , worry not , brawler and his knockback is coming so get ready to dump yellow cappy too ; d

[HolyDuckTape]

Hi, just wondering what people think about this, I reckon if Redline Guard was given a 100% increase in damage it would still be below a RK i.e. Tier 3 damage. What do you reckon and how high have people been able to parse over 3 mins using red line?

Red guardians have been able to parse for 80-100k+ before the LI buff, I have not seen any parses or done any parses myself anymore after the buff but i would assume their numbers would be around 100-140k now. Let's say we double the dps, 200-280k dummy dps. So high end guards (240k+) would be on par with hunters nowadays (or a bit higher) while they get -4% mit + 10% mit bypass so we would now officially be the highest ST dps class in the game (on dummies atleast), not even by that huge of an amount honestly but still a noticeable amount for sure.

Would this give us any spots? Sadly i must answer with ''maybe''. Red guards bring absolute zero group support, rely too much on parries which don't exist anymore and have garbage crit chance. The last 2 points greatly paint a very wrong picture of high dps numbers for guards as they will have to need a ton more rng to hit the higher numbers compared to other dps classes. So the answer would possibly be no for any high tier progression raiding or ''best comps'' in general but i do think we would finally be a realistic option to take for AD/Remmo t5 then.
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Guardian dps numbers can be very deceiving let's say you have 2 champions and their "max" dps is (random number) 210k dps.
Well which champ is gonna hit this number more often?

The champ with: 30% crit chance + 10% strike skill crit chance, +5% crit chance 1.8s cd 10s duration + 10% crit chance 2m cd 12s duration + guaranteed merciful strike crits + 5-25% remorseless strike crit chance
Or
The champ (guardian) with 25% crit chance + 2% perma untill death/ooc on a 2m cd + 1 guaranteed crit skill 1m cd? Now add a ton of parry rng on top of this.

Every once in a while you might be able to hit that max but the chance to hit it is MUCH smaller. Thus making it a bit deceiving when you walk around saying "guards can do 280k dps wooooow they are so OP" kinda how it would be deceiving to say "champs are so OP they can do 400k dps on dummies" and then you see the champ had 100% crit chance which is the most unrealistic thing ever.
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Sure red guard dps is absolutely atrocious atm ESPECIALLY if you factor in the absolute zero group support it provides. But the main issue with red guards atm is the absolute trash trait tree, it by far is one of the top worst trait lines in lotro.

[Fermongu]

i did 90k parse on dummy yesterday without any buffs, no food, no scrolls.

I have around 780k physical mastery and 22% crit chance (base).

So expect around not much more than 100k on dummy with better stats. If better, I want to see it XD (not that matters anyway, just curious).

[Rino90]

Red guardians have been able to parse for 80-100k+ before the LI buff, I have not seen any parses or done any parses myself anymore after the buff but i would assume their numbers would be around 100-140k now.

Red guardian (805k physical mastery and 590k crit for raid buffs) with switching two legendary weapons now inflicts about 110-120k dps on dummy without extraneous buffs and scrolls.

[BinaryTertiary]

Red guardian (805k physical mastery and 590k crit for raid buffs) with switching two legendary weapons now inflicts about 110-120k dps on dummy without extraneous buffs and scrolls.

zipfile from arkenstone posted this yesterday in tumbas idk their numbers or anything but it seems max buffs?

[HolyDuckTape]

zipfile from arkenstone posted this yesterday in tumbas idk their numbers or anything but it seems max buffs?

[IcarusLSC]

Now they need to fix Brutal Charge: 100% crit on first hit if trait is equipped and maxed doesn't work, at all...