Some Guardian Thoughts

[Sindhol]

I've never had a problem with skill "bloat" on the guardian (N.B. I don't play red), even when I was totally new to it. It's a pretty straightforward system, after all: something happens, play a skill, play next skill, if you don't, you lose the opportunity. I think it's actually quite fun, and certainly not something that you'd improve upon if you changed it as described. Forking response skill paths are really interesting.

It is true that the game is terrible at introducing itself, but that's an issue with tutorials and available information in-game, and has nothing to do with the guardian. For example, class quests don't provide any guidance or opportunity to practice, and the way you unlock skills (i.e. they automatically appear on your bar) doesn't especially encourage people to read them, either. (By contrast, buying them from a trainer makes you read the skill, right? You want to know what you're buying. And you could do much more to "sell" a new skill when it's first unlocked.)

Regarding the guardian, the following things come to mind:
- I like my guardian because I have a clear and direct tool for many problems (e.g. interrupts, corruptions, debuff clear, good variety of tactical/emergency skills, nice set of taunts) as well as a rotation that's relevant and not always the same (e.g. block/parry responses, Shield-Smash is neato for easier [read: stunnable] stuff, Redirect + War-Chant is neato for harder stuff). Guardians feel solid and capable when tanking. When starting out, you can do a lot with a few skills, and then you can add more skills as you become more skilled.
- In some fights, block/parry responses don't show up that much, which makes the class a bit boring to play.
- There are and you need to use a lot of animation cuts. I don't mind this, actually, but it's probably not good for accessibility.
- Yellow line used to be so cool, with Radiated marks and AoO skills proccing multiple Flash of Light hits per target. I miss that. The non-scaling of Flash of Light was/is great for tanks, too. That is, if you didn't have mastery (say because you forgot to bring your DPS swappies, not that that ever happened to me), Flash of Light could rescue your DPS--the damage wasn't actually that high, of course, but significant on a tank build. And if you were tanking, you'd generate a good amount of aggro with Flash of Light, but you'd really want to draw in additional mobs (at least 4 at the time) to Radiate marks to. I like that: scaling benefits for engaging multiple enemies (scaling even more than regular AoEs already do, that is). I wouldn't mind seeing Radiate work on bleeds again, either.
- Aggro management is (almost) all taunts. This is a problem with all tank classes, but still worth noting.
- Defence is (almost) all mitigations. Again, a problem in general. As you note, SSG has painted itself in a corner (I'd say: ####ed up) with mitigations. The stat system is ####ed up, too. People used to have BPE swappies and resist swappies and such. You can forget about that these days.
- Swapping between two-handed and sword-and-board isn't something you can do in combat anymore, and even if you could, you don't have the stats to be a "temporary tank" from redline or a "temporary DPS" from blue or yellow. I consider that a loss; swapping roles in combat is great, and tying roles to a particular kind of weapon makes a lot of sense (i.e. "drop the shield and grab your BIG sword for BIG damage" is cool and intuitive). Reintroducing weapon swapping probably isn't going to happen, so maybe separating weapon type and role is the thing. Although that'd also be a loss. Making guardians sword-and-board only (either formally or practically) would be bad, as well. There should be lots of ways to run a guard, not One True Setup. (This is also a general problem. I smell a pattern emerging...)
- Why do tanks need so little finesse? Too many of the important skills can't miss (interrupts, taunts). Finesse should be a tank stat par excellance, as it improves the consistency of your make-or-break skill plays, like taunts. But you end up slotting all vitality/tmit. Perhaps the threat system is too heavily taunt-based to make taunts unreliable enough to require finesse, hmm? Itself an example of bad design, of course.

The emerging pattern is that successive updates have replaced complexity/depth with bloat. Different pieces of equipment have been replaced with "just stack essences". Different defences have been replaced with "just cap mits, bloat morale". Weapon swapping is gone. Avoidable interrupts are gone. Since trait trees, guardians have like 40 tanking traits/specialization benefits, but only about ten are relevant: Pledge, War-Chant, Fortification, Take to Heart, Redirect, Bring on the Pain, Juggernaut, Smashing Stab, Shield-Smash, Numbed Senses, Break Ranks. And most of these you're just going to have anyway, so all the trait choices you're making are about secondary or tertiary traits (plus specialization, which is always blue, so yeah).

Overall, I'd encourage you to keep the guardian as a moderately complex class, and update the stupid class selection page (in character creation) listing it as "basic" class. No tank class is "basic". They all require good situational awareness and melee positioning, and tanking is almost always a more difficult role in a group than DPSing. In part, this is because DPSers have had a lot of their support abilities stripped out, so they tend to have one job: hit the target assist. Again, red guardians (or red wardens, nevermind champs--burgs can do it best, I guess) are very unlikely to be able to Challenge and take over some adds for even 10-15 seconds, and I don't think any DPS runs, say, a CC rotation while DPSing. Now, if a red guardian could legitimately take some pressure off the main tank because it's a "tank" DPS, that'd be really cool.

So yeah: focus on encouraging multiple builds and cut out bull#### traits.

[Dan_Kori]

As a general note, I personally feel that the number of skills avaiable for all classes in LoTRO can be overwhelming. Yes, for most of us who have played the game for a very long time we are so used to the number of skills does not seem too much, but to newer players it certainly can gt overwhelming fast.

I'm a very casual player (by some definitions probably one of these "newer" players you think you're targeting here), mostly interested in exploring the world and following the storyline (currently about to enter Isengard). I've started glancing at these forums maybe twice a month to get a feel for what all is happening - but the above worries me to such a degree that I'm now actually posting here.

You need to be able to show massive and immediately obvious benefits before you should move the cheese on me, as I have countless other games on my backlog to spend my too limited time on. I played a Hunter once, many years ago, and then the massive skill changes which came at the time of Rohan caused me to drop the game like a hot potato. It took me a lot of time to get decent at playing that Hunter, and I did not care to reinvest loads and loads of time to get to the same point (still haven't touched that char now that I'm back).

I started playing again with all the anniversary free content earlier this year, picking a Guardian this time around. FWIW, I play "yellow line" with axe and shield (I'm aware that this is considered not a viable playstyle by experienced players on this forum, but I'm enjoying myself thoroughly with it), and really like to push myself gathering an almost-too-large group of enemies around me to then take down, as that's the only time where I need to actually pay attention and use my healing skills. Since I have a much higher block than parry rating (and always forget that Catch a Breath also works with a parry response), I particularly like that using Catch a Breath prevents me from using Shield-swipe->Bash, so I really need to judge when that healing becomes necessary.

The number of skills I have available to me is certainly a lot compared to other games, but it's not something I feel in any way overwhelmed by. Rather, I really appreciate that there's some depth to explore - and that there's always something useful to activate while waiting for the 'main' skills to become available again. (So when fighting a group of enemies, I use all four area attack skills I have (five really, but Cataclysmic Shout has such a long cooldown that it doesn't count), and appreciate them all existing.) The various skill deeds really helped me focus on using particular skills a lot, and thus seeing what exactly they did and how I could use them effectively. I like that at any point during a battle I have many choices available to me, and that my decision on which one to activate are meaningful. (I mostly wish that gameplay was harder, as there's just very little challenge in most of the quests, so the only thing caused by making suboptimal choices is the fight taking a little bit longer.) As a specific example, I really liked encountering enemies - I think in Angmar? - that had "corruption effects" which I could remove with Improved Sting; before I had basically ignored the skill, but the situational use of it made me take a much closer look at it. A while later, when I for the first time started running out of Power in some fights, I liked reevaluating all my skills for their damage/power balance, and Sting became part of my regular lineup.

In short: I would not enjoy when the next skill in a sequence to use would be an obvious choice, and even less when it would be the 'only' choice.

I want to highlight a personal pet peeve of mine - the skill flyout window.

I am thinking that I am going to make a tweak to the way that this works in the following manner - get rid of it for Guardians.

FWIW, I never make use of that window; I just trigger the relevant skill from my main skill bar when I hear the ping / see that I can in that main bar.


I tried reading the rest of this thread, but I think that the game I experience is distinctly different from the way more experienced players see it all. I hope that sharing my PoV provides some useful insight for you.

[Sindhol]

FWIW, I never make use of that window; I just trigger the relevant skill from my main skill bar when I hear the ping / see that I can in that main bar.

Me too, I've never used that panel. It's not really part of the class, either, so I don't know why Orion brought it up as guardian problem. Other classes also have procs that go on a separate bar (Snap Shot skills on wardens, for example), and it's useless there, too. I'm all for removing that bar, but response skills are good as they are.

[Sindhol]

As an example, I want to highlight a personal pet peeve of mine - the skill flyout window.

I am thinking that I am going to make a tweak to the way that this works in the following manner - get rid of it for Guardians.

How?

I'm glad you asked. Skills that require a specific response effect like Retaliation, Shield-swipe, and Whirling Retaliation are really meant to chain together off of the combat event occuring from a previous skill. Regardless of when they are earned they are an improvement over the other initial skills you earn as a Guardian, Sting and Guardian's Ward. So, moving forward, I am considering replacing the skills Sting, Guardian's Ward, and Sweeping Cut when the correct combat reponse is achieved.

But Why?

Clutter and quality of life, imho. At early levels this might not seem that important but as we level and earn more skills our bar becomes ever more cluttered with skills that can only be used under certain circumstances. Additionally, I think that the disruption in the tradition skill bar by initializing the skill flyout causes an unnecessary break in the traditional APS for players because it requires an awkward key combination or drifting mouseclick to execute. I don't think that anything is lost by combining the skills in this manner.

I've had a bit more time to think about it, and I think you're barking up the wrong tree. The current system is: "You have a skill on your bar. It's grey. When it turns not-grey, you can play it". There is nothing to simplify here.

There are currently about seven response skills in a tank build: Retaliate, Whirling Retaliation, Redirect, Shield-Smash, Shield-Blow, Shield-Taunt, Shield-Swipe. I personally don't use Retaliate or Shield-Blow very often while tanking, but they are on my bar, so let's include them.

Let's say we replace these with "generic response skills". This would reduced seven skills to about four, some of which would have duplicate skills: Retaliate > Redirect, Whirling Retalation > Redirect, Shield-Swipe > Shield-Blow > Shield-Smash, Shield-Taunt > Shield-Smash. We could make, say, Shield-Taunt or Whirling Retaliation separate skills, not part of a chain, but then I'd still have four skills on my bar: "generic parry", "generic block", ST, and WR. So four skills is the lowest we're getting without actually deleting skills.

How much does that help new guardians? Probably not at all, I'd say. There are three fewer occupied slots on your bar, but it's actually harder to see what skills you have, because each slot is two or three skills. When you unlock Shield-Smash, nothing will appear on your bar! Now, wardens do work like that, but experience with wardens suggests that people find it harder to remember their skills that way, not easier.

The simple system of "put your skills on your bar in the order they unlock" is much easier. You can always see what's on your bar, and you can see what you can play and what you can't (just like skills that are on cooldown). Your skills are organized in space: each skill is in a different place on your screen and responds to a different key on your keyboard, and that space and that key is always the same.

On the mechanical side, a transforming generic response skill would make it impossible to get a block response if you've just used Shield-Swipe. Or rather, you might get a block response, but you don't have Shield-Swipe available, because you first need to go through two other skills. Sometimes I'd rather use Shield-Swipe again than continue with Shield-Blow, but now I don't have that option. Also, question: would the skills share a cooldown? Because that'd suck.

To sum up: I think this just overcomplicates things. I want to hit the skill I mean to hit, when I mean to hit it. By all means, add an option to hide the flyout window, but there is no point in changing response skills.

P.S. Compare this to the beorning bar-swapping thing. That was intended to be helpful, but it's actually inconvenient. What's more, it's completely irrelevant to the problems beornings have (or don't have).

[HerrDave]

Oh man, I hope Guardians get to keep their 2H weapons!
I just read on Reddit that there was talk of getting rid of them for Red Spec - Please no :>

I based my Dwarf Guardian off of the classic race selection Dwarf - felt like such a mighty bearded chad of the Shadows of Angmar days
It'd be a great loss for Guardians to go from being the Dwalin's and Dori's of the land, to just another Laugi Goldentongue.

Here's the 5 things I'm insistent that Guardians keep:
1 - Sting
2 - Guardian's Ward
3 - Shield Blow
4 - Vexing Blow's icon
5 - 2H Weapon Use

Carry on

[wisap701111]

Skills that would occupy 1 slot and change with the progression of the chain to which they are associated.

Parry Response --> Retaliate --> Overwhelm --> To The King

Yes, this does have some issues with the branching nature of the skills - but that is something that would need to be addressed.

Again, just some initial thoughts.

Orion, a few thoughts to consider:
1) We don't always follow that progression... for instance if swamped by mobs I will elect often to skip the big single target Overwhelm -->TTK and focus on Vexing, Sweeping, Whirling, War-chant, Sting... so you can keep triggering Whirling over and over. Thus a locked progression could block adaptability and branching skills (really the difference between AoE and Single target depending on the situation and priority)

2) I just came back from a 1.5 yr break... oh man I rely heaving on all those tools tips showing the Damage ranges... if these become a blended, please consider how new or returning players get access to the dps and skill information... including time spend at dummies playing with rotations, buffs, etc... we'll want to see all those skill effects somehow...

3) lastly... button mashing the same key is boring and mind numbing. Unless you are trying to turn this into an X-box console...A ..A...A...A type of game, I love the skill and expertise of learning a class. hours spent reading tool tips, reorganizing skill bars to match your play style (do you order skills in progression of use, or maybe you like to order from lowest to highest dps, etc..) Both GRD and CHP require the player to know their AOE and single target skills to adjust to mobs, multiple bosses, adds, and cc in group instances... take this away (intentionally or accidentally) and the fun of the class goes away. Which of course, respectfully, I realize you already know... but I would be concerned about loss of challenge. Besides... if A.B.C.D progression is really important to a player, there are plugins that will do that for you... there is plenty of room in the skill bars to organize your skills to fit your play style and set up progression flows as you like...

Perhaps having dual purpose skills (ie AOE if buffed, Single target if not buffed) could reduce the number of skills on the skill bar (which seems to be a dev focus), but still require player skill, skill combinations , and in game timing, so I think there are ways to get to your goal without pulling the challenge of a class...

Thanks (nice to see the GRD getting attention though, and thanks for sharing thoughts for the community to "bash around")

[wisap701111]

YELLOW LINE: thoughts for fun...

I'd love to see this line turn more into an off-tank crowd CONTROL (not mezzing), PROTECTOR line, and ANTI-Agro... a heavy amour smash and bash, physically aggressive protection style! Not Tanking a boss, but protecting areas or players... Aoe stuns, knock backs... the ability to push a mob(s) a short distance.... a reverse agro (scary! run away) aggro dumps, damage transfers (heroic sacrifice), etc.. all to control and protect an area or other players... Think Boromir protecting Hobbits taking hits, blocking mobs from passing, and knocking back mobs...

In raids... the "off-tank" role from the Moria days has been lost a little. remember champs running around picking up all the adds on the mini and kiting them over to the main tank? Think of Yellow as a perhaps an aggressive, smash and bash protection line. Towering over the raid healers, bashing always wave of incoming mobs, pushing a select problem add up to 15m away from the group so a BRG or LM can mezz it away from the group... running to a side corridor to shield slam mobs back up the hallway and fight to block the way.. the ability to tank/aggro a wave of death-on-touch adds, but knock them away just before they death touch you... forget relying on rez's... Instead Yellow line GRD's off tanking mobs off and away from healers, hunters, taking damage.. in many ways, this line would be physical aggression (Push, slam, throw), with both Aggro (Hey follow me!) and ANTI-agro (Scary!...temporarily run away from you, or get push around) to control and protect. Would need to play with it a little so you are not just standing there knocking things way.. but having to run/charge to build up push/knockback back power. perhaps also cause the protector line to eat morale instead of power to hammer away at mobs (sacrificial protection-true hero stuff there! lol).. But you could really throw the chaos of battle at players in a raid, mobs swarming the battlefield with offtanks desperately trying to hold ground and protect key players while DPS'ers, cc'er, tanks, and healera try to restore order...

Perhaps in the ANTI agro line of thinking... beating on a mob would build zero GRD aggro BUT cause REDUCTION in aggro on your sheild protetion target as long as you are close to them.....ie beat on a protected target until it runs away... GRD generating no aggro and reducing the protected targets agro...push mobs rather than taunt... build some aggro and dump it...

Perhaps bring back and agrro swap/dump mechanism... again GRD heavy smash style... I'd love to see an aggro dump that literally throws a mob at the agrro dump target... aggro an orc... go chuck him at the main tank... super funny, but also providing raid/group utility... of course aggro dumping a boss (who is far to big to chuck) could result in you bouncing off and back from the boss.. And we all love a good tank swapping raid

Could create interesting combos..:
Heavy Blue, little Yellow - AGGRO, HEAVY MITS, TANKING... yellow ads a few stuns, short run aways to avoid a near death, and agro dumping for tank swapping
Heavy Yellow - Protection mode - sacrificial meat shield, ANTI agro, agro redution & dumping, protection skills, ability push and throw mobs around, include a wide push to shield push back a swath of mobs...
Add some blue... self protection goes up... War Chant boost single target healing (assisted healing for raid utilty in Yellow)
Add some Red... dps increased to handle


Could be alot of fun, dynamic to play (lots of moving around), and a different approach to of crowd/protection by pushing away that really works as a team with other classes and players...

OK..ok... a least have a little fun with the idea before you say it won't work! lol. Cheers!

[wisap701111]

Let's start with things that are not actually a problem:
1)The Guardian's Red line is not and it shouldn't be on par with a DPS class. Cause of that no one will ever get a RED Guardian for a T3-T5 Raid, so any changes that will be made to the Red line only affect Solo content and PvP.
2)The number of Guardian skills is manageable as it is now and, to be honest, it's on the low side compared with other classes.

GRD DPS does need to be good enough to redline T1 though.. just returned from the game (1.5 break to due work demands)... levelled the GRD... LOVE tanking... damn it! I can't get into groups... my tank gear is #### and my mits are WAYYY to low to tank without a good tanking set... but I get rejected from most T1 groups if I ask to redline GRD...I can't build up gear... having to run everything with my RK and trade for GRD gear... something is broken there...

But otherwise I agree... CHAMP's should always out DPS GRDS when fully geared... thus meaning GRD's are not intended for T2+ in redline... our T2-T5 role is tanking... (and perhaps off-tanking)

Update! -- jumped in a kin run this evening with another GRD who was kind enough to share... got 5 useful tanking pieces in one shot, so I have a viable T1 build now. Redline was fun in the raid too! Go kin go!

[carolina_bryan]

I am thinking that the DPS line for the Guardian would shift to sword and shield play over two-handed sword. What are Gurdian's thoughts on this?

To me, the class fantasy for Guardian is sword and board. Using a shield (and the associated durability) is what distinguishes it from a Champion. So I would MUCH prefer it if I was using a shield even when I want to DPS/solo.

And yes, LOTRO has a huge ability bloat problem. Its one of the things that keeps me from fully investing in the game. I think you will only improve the game if you prune away many of the redundant abilities.

[UselessSmurf]

Making Guardian a bleeder for its damage was the worst thing you ever did to the class.

If you want to implement a shield for dps role, then make shield skills hit hard in red line, and get rid of those clunky bleeds.

Break ranks would definitely be more fitting in a red tree spec as would Shield Spikes and some others.....Really you could bring most of the blue tree traits to red, and drop the taunting stuff in red line on said traits/skills and add different effects.

Yellow could be the new cool utility tree. Think it's only good for trolling Moors atm anyways.

Right now a DPS Guard is a Poor Man's Champion, and having a sword and board would definitely distuinguish it from Champions, and would probably be welcome by most.

Also, I think it's about time that Guard gets a +5% crit chance in it's tree, 2 handed champ gets 30% crit roughly and Guard is relegated to 20%

Whatever you so choose, it would definitely be better than a bleeder lol.

[Godomir]

I usually don´t post in the forums, I only read.

I´m playing Guardian since 2011, I know there are other fellows guards that have been here since earlier.

I will be clear, no workaround or pointless speech.

If Sting, Guardian´s Ward and Sweeping Cut are transformed in some kind of CAPTAIN skills requiring a previous response it will kill the fun of the class.

Guardian´s ward is crucial in our rotation, and in long fights is something you want to stack. But If I have to choose another skill instead to use my parry/block event, then it´s gone.

Sweeping cut is a great open in red line facing against a big group of mobs. If I have to wait a parry or use force opening then sweeping cut is making something simple to be more tedious.

Sting, great opening in solo fights and corruption removal. The same as above, if I want to remove a corruption, I want my skill for that purpose ready at all times.

We have response skills like retaliation,whirling retaliation, catch a breath, overhelm... enough for me.

If the changes are to simplify the skills used or have a better QOL with the class, the changes you mentioned are completelly the opposite.

As some guards have said, I think Guardian is not a hardened skilled class. In my opinion Wardens on the other hand are. So there is a sentence that says: "If something works, don´t change it".

Some of my fellows have proposed here interesting changes. You have the support of expertise hardcore raiders blue guards, and solo skilled red guards. Use it! Be smart! Is a point in your side to come here and discuss with us.

But whatever you do, don´t change those skills in response skills, because are in my opinion, key skills, and shouldn´t be touched.

Also 2H weapons or sword/shield, should be available in all lines. It´s the year 2022, give me options, not take away from me. Let people be happy with how they identify themselves with their guard.

I´m only speaking for myself. I´m not a representant of the guardians, neither their leader or whatever. It´s my humble and sincere opinion, nothing more.

[Wolfhelm]

Right now a DPS Guard is a Poor Man's Champion, and having a sword and board would definitely distuinguish it from Champions, and would probably be welcome by most.

I agree that Red Guards play like a poor man's Champion ATM, but I disagree that most people would welcome switching from two handed weapons to sword and board for red line. If this thread is anything to go by then most people oppose that idea.

[Joedangod]

Not sure where people are coming from stating that rGuard plays like a poor mans Champion. They both have heavy armour and 2h melee weapons but that's more or less where the similarities end considering the bleed/response chain focused playstyle of Guard is pretty notably different in practice from the Champ fervour stuff.

That being said there's definitely room to separate them a bit more, perhaps by further tying rGuard into the hammer aesthetic with a passive damage bonus whenever you have a hammer equipped (would mostly just need to be equivalent to racial bonuses).

[fealegwe2]

To me, the class fantasy for Guardian is sword and board. Using a shield (and the associated durability) is what distinguishes it from a Champion. So I would MUCH prefer it if I was using a shield even when I want to DPS/solo.

And yes, LOTRO has a huge ability bloat problem. Its one of the things that keeps me from fully investing in the game. I think you will only improve the game if you prune away many of the redundant abilities.

good players don't have skill bloat problem because they know which skills are useless and remove them from the skill bars.

[PartherFar]

I prefer to have my chain skills as separate buttons. I do not like pressing the same button to get different responses. I ignore the fly out window on all classes.

On using 2 hand weapons on Guardian. I hate using 2 handers as I lose the 3 shield skills. If I can tank with a 2 hander in the yellow line then the 3 shield skills should be replaced with 2 hander skills. Such as Pommel Strike, Pommel Smash.

I think the yellow line in all classes should be kept and fixed. If you going to eliminate the yellow line then I would suggest we eliminate all 3 lines and go back to having stances you can alternate through. I remember being able to switch to the overpower stance during combat before we got trait trees. Guardian was so much better before trait trees. Then you can just have all the trees be just one tree you can pick and choose how you want to build your guardian. I would even make it so you can choose between the 3 set traits(blue, red, yellow) when you reach each of the ranks 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35. At 5 ranks in the tree you get to choose if you want Guardians Defense, Valorous Strength, or Light-touched. When you choose at rank 10 the ones not chosen at rank 5 would could be chosen here also.

Every MMO that has gone to trait trees continues to make changes to them to limit options. SWTOR and WOW, which I no longer play because of dummying down the trait trees. You used to be able to do a hybrid build in the trees to pick the best skills for how you wanted to play your character. Eliminating options in the tree to me means you might as well find the best raider and make their build the standard because that is what happens when options keep getting eliminated. You are saying this is the only way to play this class.

[PartherFar]

Not sure where people are coming from stating that rGuard plays like a poor mans Champion. They both have heavy armour and 2h melee weapons but that's more or less where the similarities end considering the bleed/response chain focused playstyle of Guard is pretty notably different in practice from the Champ fervour stuff.

That being said there's definitely room to separate them a bit more, perhaps by further tying rGuard into the hammer aesthetic with a passive damage bonus whenever you have a hammer equipped (would mostly just need to be equivalent to racial bonuses).

If the blue line Champion was given the heavy shield option back like you could class trait for before trait trees. I would never play the guardian again. Guardian was my class of choice from the launch of LOTRO. Every change they have made to the Guardian has made it more and more unplayable. Mind you I solo or play with a friend. It is no longer friendly to either of these play styles in my opinion.

[Leakie]

Blue:

• Tireless Defender should be replaced with a Vitality trait. It's a useless trait with the current power system. With the changes on the horizon, maybe this addresses it.
• Reversal should be replaced with Resistance, scaling by 1% per rank, with 5 ranks max.
  
• It currently allows Guardians to be completely immune to any CC attempts when traited /w traceries, limiting content design.
• Disorientation should be replaced with a Shield Damage & Threat trait. It's currently utterly useless because Finesse exists.
• Reduce Stoic max trait count from 6 to 5. 6 points is an absurd cost.
• Warriors Fortitude should be a passive entirely, unhooked from Warriors Heart. Change the incoming healing to 3% from rating.
  
• The trait that relies on us using our strongest cooldown is counter-productive. Making it a passive allows consistent benefit. Changing incoming healing from rating to % is long overdue because of bad scaling.
• Give Juggernaut a 30% damage reduction for the duration and reduce the cooldown to two minutes.
  
• This would allow it to be a damage preventing cooldown, as 100% block chance doesn't help at all in certain encounters.
• Reduce Break Ranks potency to 30% and increase the duration to 20 seconds.
  
• Overall, this allows Break Ranks a higher uptime at a lower magnitude, making it far more balanced.
  
• Ideally, Break Ranks would become its own skill, but it isn't that big of an issue.
• Adaptability stacks should be changed to not consume the buff when you play a skill.
• Shield-taunt now deals Light damage with increased Threat.
• Give Vexing Blow increased threat generation or threat leech. Currently, the skill doesn't do anything.

Overall the traitline is very strong already and is capable enough, no need to reinvent the wheel.

Red:

• Still lacking specialization perk. Only trait tree in the game.
  
• With that in mind, this is a proposal posted around
  
  
• This proposition is about making Guardians a capable DPS class, replacing healing output (which is far too high) with competitive damage.
  
• Two-handed Hammers is about parity, as Hammers are the only weapon type that no class or race benefits from. This allows Guardians to use any Two-Handed weapon and not be shorted on damage.

• Overall damage disparity is okay, but some improvements need to be made:
  
• Using this parse to highlight glaring issues regarding damage:
  
  
  
• Bleeds last too long and you don't really benefit from their durations as you cycle through skills that are on far shorter cooldown.
  
• Terrible Wound didn't scale up properly due to not being connected to the LI system introduced a year ago.
  
• Access to Parry Response skills is gimped due to RNG.
  
• Plenty of skills and traits are not contributing at all to the damage output
  
  
• Terrible Wound isn't affected by Overwhelm damage & critical chance tracery, unlike Slashing Wound/Sweeping Cut and Brutal Assault/Haemorrhaging Wound traceries. This causes Terrible Wound, which should be our strongest bleed, to be surpassed by Haemorrhaging Wound.
  
• Reduce Bleed durations:
  
• Deep Wound: 14 seconds
  
• Slashing Wound: 10 seconds
  
• Terrible Wound: 10 seconds
  
• Haemorrhaging Wound: 8 seconds
  
• Increase Bleed damage by roughly 25% base value
  
• Reduction in Bleed duration is because no capable Guardian DPSing is maximizing bleed durations, but you're rather making sure you're cycling the main damaging skills first. In its current iteration, you're losing out on far too much damage if you allow that, and yet Bleeds to tick for that long. Shorter Bleeds, with more damage, don't change the actual rotation in the slightest, as you're cycling all those key skills at the roughly the durations time.
  
• Increase base damage by roughly 10% on all skills.
  
• Base damage on some Guardian skills is pretty low, this is to shore the up a bit and can benefit Blue as well.

• Further damage changes proposal:
  
• Increase Stagger damage by 40% base, decrease the cooldown to 4 seconds.
  
• Currently, Stagger is worthless skill in a rotation. Remove the Attack Duration debuff, its worthless, reduce the slow from 25% to 20%.
  
• Increase Guardians Ward damage by 20% base. This would allow it to be a decent filler skill (not counting the set bonus, those are fleeting)
  
• Increase Force Opening damage by 30% base.
  
• These changes are aimed at making the aforementioned skills a better filler in rotations, because as they currently stand, they are a large DPS loss.

• Traits:
  
• Replace Thrill of Battle with Parry Response damage trait, 3/6/9/12/15%
  
• Replace Skilled Deflection with Bonus Might during Guardians Ward, similar scaling as Brawler's Might Increase
  
• Broad Strokes changed to ALWAYS apply Bleed, remove second tier of the trait, remove extra targets.
  
• Brutal Assault and friends:
  
• Increase base damage of Brutal Assault by 15%
  
• Brutal Assault suffers from needing far too many points to start becoming impactful. Between the reset chance and only a chance to proc the bleed, it doesn't feel rewarding for the points investment.
  
• Tireless Blows now scales at 12/24/36/48/60%. This is to help reset procs occur more often.
  
• Haemorrhage ALWAYS gives Brutal Assault bleed. Damage upped to 5/10/15/20%. This trait felt pretty bad while leveling, as putting points into it didn't feel rewarding.
  
• Similarly to Brutal Assault and friends, there are two other traits that feel like they aren't contributing to the full damage potential, with only max rank being impactful.
  
• Deeper Wounds no longer grants additional Bleed Pulses. Damage scaled to 3/6/9/12/15% remaining.
  
• Invigourating Parry changed to Bleed Critical Damage Magnitude trait, 5 ranks, each rank granting 5% critical damage bonus to Bleeds
  
• To The Rescue trait scaling changed from 6 to 3. Each rank grants 1 second duration increase. Max rank grants Guardian 3% critical chance for the duration of the Charge. Move speed bonus removed.
  
• With the changes to LIs a year ago, Guardian has grained bonus movement speed on the tracery, so this move speed isn't needed.
  
• Reducing the duration but gaining a powerful buff during the Charge allows more offensive potential, far more than the old bonus.
  
• To The King now Knocks Down on Critical/Devastate instead of opening a Fellowship Manoeuvre. Changed because you getting an FM at an unfortunate timing causes issues in fights that require them.
  
• Blind Rage now ALWAYS proc's, max scaling changed from 5 to 4, each rank grants 2.5% damage and 5% attack speed.
  
• Warriors Fortitude grants 5% damage and 10% critical damage magnitude. Other bonuses removed. Is now a 2 trait passive. Unhooked from Warriors Heart.
  
• Similar to Blue line changes, relying on Warriors Heart, the best CD we have, for a mediocre buff, seems counterproductive.
  
• Each rank would give 2.5% damage and 5% critical magnitude.
  
• Hammer Down:
  
• Removes all Bleeds from the target for additional damage.
  
• Hammer Down gains 25% crit chance for every bleed removed.
  
• No longer stuns on low morale targets.
  
• Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
  
• Honourable Combat reworked:
  
• A frontal arc attack that grants a damage shield and Parry Chance. Bubble is 2% of max health and 1% Parry Chance. If you are currently protecting a target, they instead gain the benefits. 20s CD, max 5 targets, 10s duration.
  
• Currently, Honourable Combat is worthless heal. As Guardians struggles giving some group utility, this seems relatively moderate utility that has worth for soloing and in a group setting.
  
• Reactive Parry reworked:
  
• Critical Hits with Sting grant a Parry response.
  
• This overcomes the issue of Red Guardians getting a reliable Parry Response to fuel their rotation
  
• Protection By The Sword changes:
  
• No longer a pulsating aura.
  
• No longer grants passive damage.
  
• When the target or Guardian parries an attack, grants group 5% damage for 10 seconds. Has an internal cooldown of 10 seconds.
  
• When the targeted ally parries an attack, grants Guardian parry response.
  
• When targeted on an ally, grants them 5% parry chance.
  
• Self-parry works regardless if toggled on an ally, meaning that if Guardian is alone and parry an attack, they gain bonus damage.
  
• Protection By The Sword works as a minor self buff as well as granting additional group benefits. Self-parry changes also enhance it to work when soloing.
  
• Bleed Them Dry grants 10% damage to Bleed proc skills (Brutal Assault, Sweeping Cut, Thrust, Overwhelm) and 5% critical chance to Bleeds (Haemorrhaging Wound, Slashing Wound, Deep Wound, Terrible Wound)
  
• In an effort to move away from Bleed durations being excessive, this seems like a powerful replacement for a trait that's relatively worthless in a good rotation.
  
• Prey On The Weak reworked:
  
• Using Brutal Assault has a 50% chance to proc Deadly Wound, a high damage bleed. If Brutal Assault critically strikes, then it's a 100% chance.
  
• This Bleed is ranked between Slashing Wound and Haemorrhaging Wound.
  
• Duration is 8 seconds.
  
• No internal cooldown.
  
• Call-back to the old legendary trait Haermorrhage, granting further damage that can interact with Hammer Down for stronger cashouts.

Yellow:

Yellow cannot be made to function within current limitations of the game or at least without significantly overhauling the way certain debuffs and mechanics work. As such, this is my proposal:

• Passive Trait line, offering offensive and defensive bonuses and skill augments.

With that in mind here are some suggestions for traits:

• Insult To Injury reworked:
  
• Vexing Blow strikes additional targets and grants extra damage. 5 ranks, 2% damage per rank, max rank grants +2 targets. All ranks are 1 point each.
  
• Additional damage, along with the proposed extra threat mechanic, would allow the skill to gain much more usage in both lines.
• Radiate removed.
• High Spirited Removed.
• Light-touched moved to trait line in place of High-spirited:
  
• Grants incoming healing and melee damage. 1% per rank, 5 ranks. At max rank, Guardian can block with Two-handed weapons. All ranks cost 1 point
  
• Keeping the spirit of Yellow in forms of the option of getting Blocking with Two-handed weapons, while also getting damage for Red and Incoming Healing for Blue.
• Disabling Strikes removed.
• War-chant damage debuff increased to 10%. First rank costs 2 points, second one costs 1.
• Numbed Senses ranks reduced from 3 to 2. Each rank costs 2 points.
  
• Numbed Senses is an overpowered trait that allows Guardian to remove a massive amounts of negative effects with impunity. A small nerf to keep it strong is in order.
• Bolster reworked:
  
• Playing Block Response skills grants a stacking Critical Defence buff rating. Buff lasts 15 seconds and expires in combat. Same rating magnitude and max ranks as live. Can gain multiple stacks from AOE skills.
  
• Changing this from RNG proc to something you can control feels more rewarding than just having a passive number go up. Maintaining stacks now makes you unable to kite and keep the benefit.
• Tenderize reworked:
  
• Playing Parry Response skills grants a stacking Critical Rating buff rating. Buff lasts 15 seconds and expires in combat. Same rating magnitude and max ranks as live. Can gain multiple stacks from AOE skills.
  
• Similar reasoning as Bolster, granting you control over the buff and having rewards for it, allowing you to quickly gain extra offensive capabilities
• Bolster and Tenderize cost 1 trait point per rank.
• Thrill of Danger costs 2 points.
• Flash Of Light removed.
• Demoralizing Anthem costs 1 point.
• Bring On The Pain costs 1 point.
• Mark of Permanence removed.
• Strong Bursts max ranks dropped to 5. Grants additional Light and AOE damage, 5% per rank. Each rank one point.
• Redirect costs 3 points.
• Vicious Rebuttal costs 1 point.
• Warriors Fortitude Yellow removed.
  
• There are already two bonuses for each specific line and Yellow one always felt out of place, as it gave incoming healing rating and mastery, which aren't priority stats.
• Manifested Ire removed.
  
• Never felt useful as you'd always hit the enemy. Slow was also removable and is redundant with the amount of movement speed Guardian has.
• Singular Focus reworked:
  
• Scoring critical hits response skills reduces targets armour by 3%.
  
• This effects stacks up to 3 times
  
• Duration is 10 seconds.
  
• Stacks do not tier down but get removed entirely.
  
• Costs 3 points to acquire.
  
• Keeping a similar feeling as old Singular Focus, this grants extra utility to Guardians regardless of trait line.
• Cataclysmic Shout reworked:
  
• Deals massive Light damage in an AOE.
  
• Damage is further increased by stacks of Bolster or Tenderize on Guardian.
  
• Each stack independently increases damage by 3%, for a total of 30% possible with all stacks removed afterwards.
  
• Applies a knockdown on enemies when all 10 stacks are used.
  
• Hits up to 6 targets in an 8m AOE.
  
• Costs 3 points to acquire.
  
• Cooldown is 90 seconds.
  
• A far more powerful version of current version, granting a powerful disable and a good offensive damage cooldown enhanced by the stacks of Bolster and Tenderize that are actively acquired.

End of the wish/suggestions list, thank you for reading and big thanks to Orion for sticking his neck out for the community like this.

Special thanks to Corvo for editorial help.

Sincerely,

a seasoned Guardian that can differentiate between Champions and Guardians.

[Wolfhelm]

Not sure where people are coming from stating that rGuard plays like a poor mans Champion. They both have heavy armour and 2h melee weapons but that's more or less where the similarities end considering the bleed/response chain focused playstyle of Guard is pretty notably different in practice from the Champ fervour stuff.

Personally I was only talking about the aesthetic of the champ. I've never played champ in any serious way, and never at level cap, but I've always thought they looked pretty cool waving the big two-handed sword around. When I play my guard in red line it's always with a two-handed sword, but sadly it's almost always solo, he may look a little like a champ, but that's where the similarity ends, damage, particularly AoE, isn't even in the same league.

[Scott7878]

Please do not nerf Guardians 2 hand weapons, its the only class I still enjoy playing

[Rino90]

How did you achieve such high average skill damage? Here is an example of my parser with hope and 5% damage scrolls. The only thing missing is gold traceries for solo damage and bleeding damage

[Leakie]

How did you achieve such high average skill damage? Here is an example of my parser with hope and 5% damage scrolls. The only thing missing is gold traceries for solo damage and bleeding damage

All gold traceries.

And I had exceptional RNG with the parse, I believe I had over 40% critical chance on average. You can see Hammer Down crit all 5 times during it, which doesn't happen at all.

4R + 3Y sets, with full self-buffs and 1.4m crit rating (not a practical build for HH)

[socom33]

It's been a while since I was a hard-core player but here's some feedback from someone who left ~4 years ago and wants to come back but is continually dissuaded from spending more than maybe a few dozen hours per year. From a marketing perspective the selection bias of only hearing from remaining customers instead of the customers you lost is grossly underappreciated so I would hope this post is at least read. Since I loved the guardian class I'll go over some problems. This will sound a bit abstract/unrelated at first but gets more concrete/related as the post progresses.

Fundamentally it seems that over the years various LOTRO developers have forgotten the fundamental rule when it comes to dealing with optimizing agents: Optimizing agents exploit heterogeneity in relations that affect the objective function. If you give players a bunch of different options (here class + trait combos), they're going to exploit differences where it matters and ignore differences where it doesn't matter. In particular I've seen the relation between classes that affect things like optimal/sufficient instance fellowships change all over the place from patch to patch.

From a data structure/discrete mathematics perspective: If you visualize a network where each node is a class and the edges between the nodes are "relative effectiveness at fulfilling role X" THIS NETWORK SHOULD BE RELATIVELY CONSTANT OVER TIME. The only sizeable changes should be when a class is given an extra roll or when a bug (-fix) is introduced (implemented). What should NOT happen, but what kept happening in practice, is this network constantly changed. One update wardens tank fine, then the next they suck. One update Guardians tank fine, then the next they are grossly outclassed (even if they technically can do the job). Fundamentally I stopped playing because this network was not stationary enough to ensure low switching costs from patch to patch. I wanted to stick to 2 main classes (guard + warden) and just have fun with any other class I decided to level along the years. What I didn't want to do was be forced to level a new class or learn 3 weeks into being at the new level-cap that I had to re-gear my toon (and it's expensive AF to re-tool from min-maxed tanking to min-maxed DPS for wardens) to participate in certain content. So I basically went full casual and only log in every few months for like a few hours to mess around if that.

Now IDK how the internal development process is set up but it's clear that there is way too much freedom in the design process and not enough constraints placed on developers when they redesign a class. Networks like the above are constraints that must be met to ensure A) predictable class interactions and B) encourage algorithmic scaling which maintains the relationships. In any case these kind of constraints are clearly a secondary consideration as it stands. My best guess as to what is happening is that each class is adjusted in isolation and then it is tuned in isolation relative to some absolute baseline. For things like straight DPS or heals this works only as long as the absolute baseline is well-calibrated. If, for example, the baseline is set improperly you can have hunters seem "balanced" but then RKs are grossly underpowered relative to hunters because RKs weren't just checked and thus weren't used. This changes the relation in the network above. For example, Warden/RK Dots should have had an enforced relationship with weapon damage such that any change to weapons automatically triggers a change in DoTs so that the relative DPS of the affected classes remains approximately in check. Pretty clear this wasn't the case as the relationship between warden/RK dots and e.g. hunter/champ DPS has varied wildly over the years. It might be the case now, IDK i've gone casual and don't keep up with every class like when I raided.

Since this is the guardian forum I'll stick to the relations which are relevant to guardians:

Blue Line:

• Aggro management (single target, AoE)
• Average Survivability
• Peak Survivability
• Fellowship Survivability
• Secondary contributions

This is the most critical to have appropriate relations with other classes.

Aggro Management: Last time I checked Guardians have bar-none the best aggro management in the game. Massive AoE force taunt, a ranged ST taunt, a melee ST taunt + slow. So good stuff. However because every forced taunt is now a threat copy the single-target stuff isn't special. So as long as all forced taunts remain threat copies guardians can only differentiate themselves on AoE threat.

Average Survivability: This just deals with the ability to survive a boss absent special things like massive hits. Guardians are pretty good here too what with fortification, bolstering blocks, a short cooldown on redirect, catch a breath, etc. Depending on patch Wardens have had the highest spot here but I doubt that's the case anymore. I honestly don't know how it compares with Captains. While one would think average survival would be better for guards I have no idea. Differences between classes in this category are also often moot beyond some minimum if healers cannot trade off healing for buffs/debuffs or other secondary contributions. If they have to keep healing then any average survivability high enough to lead to overhealing is moot.

Peak Survivability: Before captains could threat copy guards used to be unequivocally the best at this (I still dont understand why last stand doesn't have like +300% max morale w/ a full heal rather than a flat "cannot die"; seems like a hard thing to balance around because of the induced disconnect in terms of causality between boss mechanics and probability of dying). Since then IDK, 17s of immunity to death is hard to top. No idea what bears/brawlers can do.

Fellowship survival: Fortification + War chant + Shield wall was pretty great. But again IDK how this stacks up relative to other classes. Players may have a psychological bias toward raw HP over mitigation + shield wall but IDK how that plays out in practice.

Secondary Contributions: Guards don't really have a secondary contribution. DPS is poor while blue-line tanking, fellowship maneuvers are dead, no real CC, etc.


Red Line:

• Average Survivability
• DPS
• Secondary Contributions (debuffs, off-tank, etc)

Aggro management should be something for DPS to consider but as far as I'm aware aggro management has become a bit of a joke since force taunts all became threat copies like engage. IDK what relation the DPS should have with other classes. 75% of dedicated DPS classes? Another AoE skill as red would be nice. Being able to swap out more DPS for lower survivability by e.g. having the option of changing up the behavior of catch a breath, warriors heart, guardian's pledge, etc. would be nice. If you want to have the option for sword + board DPS one should have a stance in red line to allow either option to be well balanced. Something like a stance which allows the use of 2 handers but changes the scaling of skills w.r.t. weapon.

Again though the most important question is something I can't offer an answer to: What relation should the DPS of guards have with other classes?

Yellow Line:

• Aggro management
• Average Survivability
• Debuffs
• DPS

The fundamental problem here is gearing. There is a mandatory trade-off induced by gearing. If you have high average survivability you will have low DPS and vice versa. And it's almost impossible to buff the skills in yellow to have good DPS with tank gear wiithout making them crazy overpowered once one is going for DPS gear + DPS LIs. The only realistic option would be to introduce some more light based skills which don't scale much off of physical mastery but do scale off the main-hand weapon. It can certainly be done and would make for more realistic switching between blue and yellow for content to speed things up (yellow for trash, blue for hard bosses). There's something annoying about being in over-kill tank mode all the time just because of the extreme hassle that comes with swapping out gear pieces. I remember I used to have minis go offense during lots of trash because I couldn't swap out of over-kill tanking. Maybe have shield skills be replaced with light-based skills when going yellow. The debuffs in yellow are kind of weak but I can see why this is necessary given the option of using a shield with yellow line.

Certainly the ability to reliably and quickly switch between good DPS 2-handed tanking and full blown blue line tanking would provide an incentive to use guardians the same way Wardens had an advantage for a long time. The ability for wardens to switch from Hots to Dots for faster instances has always been a nice feature of that class.

But again I've been casual for several years now so I lack the ability to provide much insight on the relation between guardians and other classes which is the number 1 concern of every player. For every player the most disrespectful thing you can do is brick their class in a role which basically tells players "Oh yeah you know that character you've spend 1000+ hours on min-maxing, virtue grinding, rotation optimizing? Yeah (s)he'll be useless in high-end content for the next 9 months. GFY." No matter what changes are made to guardians (or other classes) the priority should always be that the network described above remains relatively stationary. Without knowing what approximate relations between classes you (Orion) as a developer want, it's hard to comment on the most player-friendly implementation of those relations or whether those relations are set correctly. Too much time gets spent balancing classes in isolation and it's hard to get a clear picture on what the developers want the relations between classes to be which makes it hard to provide feedback.

P.S. In regards the the skill flyout window I never use it. It's much simpler to have the skills greyed out on the action bars and click them there as needed. It also encourages setting up the skills in a way that flows naturally via hotkeys.

[sarlinspellweaver]

My two-and-a-bit coppers:

- Keep two-handed weapons as an option
- Keep base skills accessible always or ensure that upgraded versions do not gate what they currently offer (e.g. moving corruption removal to tier 1 response)
- If going down the route of layered tiers for response skills, ensure that the lower tier effects are available on higher ones if we will lose the ability to select which tier response we use

Things I'd like to see but may not be consensus:

- Option to play off-tank, AoE with light DPS (aka the Yellow Guardian of old)
- Viable option to play DPS with sword + shield trading DPS for additional survivability (Guardian = shield class in my mind, don't want to lose 2-Hand option, but would love not to have to go into it for Red line)
- Would prefer not to lose third spec, but accept this may make managing the class better

[Skohgar]

An Option for a yellow guard rework

I am guessing you are going to remove yellow guard or are at least planning to but since its my main I will try to make suggestions to keep it in some form

The new stances for captain where they can go solo for more self DPS and group for buffs and the skill change depending on what stance you are inspired a change that could be made to yellow guardian where:

Yellow guard gets 2 stances Dps and tank mode

Dps mode will remove all the extra agro gain that you get from being a tank spec so you can be used in group content with out accidently gaining agro when you are just playing for damage

Dps mode will also increase the damage you deal mainly on the AOE and light damage side since that is the strong point of yellow guard and also reduce some of the survivability from tank cooldowns

Tank mode will act as current yellow guard does except maybe has some better tank cooldowns and other tank features suggested in this thread but it should never be at the same level as blue guard(or it only is better or equal in high add situations)

The AOE dps will be close to a standard AOE spec in dps mode but never surpassing
The dps will still be weak on a single target compared to a full blooded dps option but will have slightly more survivability and also the debuffs that are currently present(which could be improved)
This is to stop this being too overpowered as you basically would get a 3rd tank and damage at the same time

This could also be used to switch to tank mode if main tank dies or offtank is only needed for a certain part of a fight which will hopefully give the yellow guard a niche over other tanks

Also it would be nice if you brought back chain AOEs

Would this still be op?

[Borogard]

I am thinking that the DPS line for the Guardian would shift to sword and shield play over two-handed sword. What are Gurdian's thoughts on this?

I love this idea, please continue looking into this, Unique dps builds are great.