Some Yellow Guardian feedback for SSG to ignore.

[ThreeLeggedCow]

I have played a Guardian on and off for the last 15 years, here is some feedback for SSG to ignore. Feel free to add your own (which SSG wont bother to read) to "scream into the void"

Tanking:

Yellow line, despite being my absolute favourite line, is significantly underperforming due to a number of issues. In theory it sounds like a great line, thematically, 2h off tank, decent aoe dps, debuffs and self heals if you aggro too much, kind of a Hybrid Spec. In reality, its functionally redundant and just doesn't "gel" as a build. Great at the lower levels (better than blue early on actually but once blue has enough trait points to pick up certain yellow traits, it becomes pointless)

Cons:
1. Lack of any real damage mitigation outside of redirect. Blue line has fortification, Guardian's Pledge, Adaptability, Juggernaut (Not really that useful considering BPE is functionally useless in its current state, anything that is going to kill you as a tank is not gonna be BPE) and Stoic (decent sized bubble but could be much higher)
2. Lack of continuity and a bunch of absolutely pointless traits like Insult to injury, which is pointless as debuffs applied to you target under the affect of take to heart are permanent, and you can spread both the debuffs and take to heart to multiple enemies (which doesn't make the debuffs permanent I may add but they are super easy to simply reapply anyway through spread via Radiate which causes a chain reaction with enough aoe making this talent, quite frankly, redundant) Both these traits could simply be merged and nothing of value would be lost.
3. The debuffs are pretty minor and are pretty much ignored by strong enemies like raid bosses. 22% attack speed debuff (sounds nice, doesn't really do much) 37.5% run speed (ignored by 50% of mobbs in a raid) and 10% miss chance at max trait rank (Only actual USEFULL debuff provided here) Also, unless your off tanking you cant apply these debuffs appart from war chant as you need to crit or be behind to apply them (So you need to be sword and board for guaranteed stun and debuff application IN A 2H SPEC! Cmon SSG figure it out) . This is another example of conflicting traits. Is this line a TANK line or a DPS line, make up your damn mind SSG! 5% damage debuff from war chant is nice, but not mind blowing. For it to be usefull, attack duration penalty needs to be something like 50% or its functionally pointless.
4. Protection, our "shield ally skill" is simply pathetic. Needs a complete rework to something far more usefull. 1%BPE is USELESS! Barely gives us any block/parry response to use, better results just spamming sting with Relentless Assault in blue. Plus, you dont want dps/heals to be taking damage anyway so the functionality behind this skill is flawed. Needs to be replaced with something else. Even when put on another tank its pretty lackluster as I said before, BPE is not something any tank builds for above tier 2.
5.Tenderise: Parrying an attack gives stacking critical rating provided you dont use sting and at 5 stacks it procs a bleed that is the same as the redline bleed Thrust.......on a tank build. I'm not even going to TRY to think of the logic behind this. Rating is pointless, should be %, 5% flat crit chance or stacking crit% untill you successfully crit then resets. Either way this skill is confusing to say the least. Not to mention, counter intuitive since spamming sting is required as a tank to proc block/parry response from Relentless Assault in Blue as well as for corruption removal fights. Remove sting requirement.
6. Singular Focus and Cataclysmic shout. Singular focus being tied to a parry response CRIT is a mistake here. Cataclysmic shouts cooldown is way to long for its mediocre effect (particularly since shield smash does the exact same thing and can be spammed to a certain degree) Only real advantage of it is it seems to have a very high (or guaranteed) chance to proc spread your debuffs, which is the biggest thing since whoopty fkn doo since radiate does this anyway eventually and then just constantly refreshes itself. Cut cooldown to 30-45 sec and its a somewhat decent aoe skill.
7. "meh" damage. Ever since the flash of light nerf (Just as an aside, a completely UNNECESSARY NERF that no Guardian EVER asked for, Hell, it was the reason why our threat gen was so good in the first place and out dps was "acceptable" this nerf completely destroyed this build and needs to be reverted! Who is making these decisions, can they actually PLAY the class before they go spazz out with the nerfs thanks!)
8. Warriors fortitude stats are so low its a waste of a trait point, get rid of rating and make flat 5-10% stats or something. 5-10% evade chance, incoming healing and damage would probably be better than.....whatever this is currently.

Pro:
1. Really decent self healing, but not in yellow. The self heals provided aren't really enough to keep you alive if your main trait is yellow, but blue they are very nice(talking from a tank perspective here but the heals are real nice for redline too for landscape and tier 1) and help keep you alive quite nicely giving your healer some breathing room for large add pulls for example. More than once I have told my healer, "I'm fine for a bit, rez the dps" and can keep myself alive long enough for that to happen. Not gonna save me from stupidity though (this is a me problem haha not a trait problem)
2. Decent aoe, but not outstanding. Better than most classes, worse than others. Not gonna out dps a champ or warden anytime soon but is a nice solo spec regardless. Also makes deeding allot more enjoyable.
3. "Best" threat gen (but still could be much better, especially at 140 where threat gen is an issue period for all tanks not just guards but I will get to this later)
4. Numbed senses makes Ignore The Pain so much better. Being able to purge 4 debuffs with this skill is perfect. Leave it alone. Dont touch it (no seriously, dont)
5. Great spec for PVMP (or so I have heard I don't PVMP so feel free to correct me here)

How to Fix:
1. Get rid of ratings. Every bonus should be % based. Ratings scale so bloody poorly they are functionally a waste of trait points.
2. Improve the strength of the debuffs from stagger and make take to heart just a flat 10% miss chance in general.
3. Make it so the debuffs can be spread to multiple enemies and be permanent. 10% miss chance on all enemies is nice, however with radiate you either debuff everyone or it refuses to spread cause RNG is RNG. Give a consistent form of debuff spreading (currently kind of exists with cataclysmic shout but due to the skills super long cooldown functionally pointless)
5. Give some form of damage mitigation outside of redirect. Maybe something similar to captains Last Stand or significantly increase healing from Take to Heart to compensate. Currently, yellow line doesnt really have and "Oh Sh*t" ability like Juggernaut/last stand. Maybe 100% parry chance instead given the spec is more parry based than block?

Yellow tree is functionally just a buffer tree for red and blue as it is anyway, might as well just axe it and make it like brawler/mini and be done with it. Yeah I'm going to be really sad to see it go, but I have ZERO faith that SSG can improve it so just reduce the cost for certain skills and be done with it. Keep the current skills like Numbed Senses, Thrill of danger etc and there buffs as they are (since blue line tanks are already buying them anyway) and add some new stuff to refresh.

[Kotal]

the big problem with the yellow line self healing as a pro is, blue can do just that. and the damage difference is not that big. yellow guard is just one big identity crisis. they should just make it passive and give some of the essence of yellow to red and blue.

[Strider5548]

I would be surprised if yellow remains a line you can spec into whenever they plan to do some real work on guards.