More Guardian Thoughts

[zipfile]

this rework with orions current plans seems to be an actual, functioning rework aiming at making guardian future proof.

This is honestly my biggest fear, that all this work will be for nothing next level cap. And it's going to be the same old song Guardian always danced to.

1. New Level Cap
2. Guardian's damage doesn't scale properly
3. Months (or even years) pass
4. Guard gets damage adjustments in the latter end of the level cap
5. New Level cap launches
6. Guardian's damage doesn't scale properly
7. etc.

We've seen this happen literally every level cap increase since the start of the game.

• Shadows of Angmar
  
  • Guardian was given fancy new tools, like Overpower Stance and Forced Opening, granting the class much better levelling experience. Alongside this, damage from Thrust got increased and tied to weapon damage, as opposed to level scaled flat damage.
• Mines of Moria
  
  • Guardian's damage failed to scale, however they were given changes to Overpower with the trait line bonuses, a whole new line with Fighter of Shadow with fancy new tools never before seen and unique to the class so nobody really minded
• Siege of Mirkwood
  
  • Guardian's damage failed to scale again, but they were given some adjustments shortly after launch, such as damage type changes, faster skill changes etc.

Hopefully this illustrates my point, and as this level cap reaches it's end in a few months, will we see yet another problem? Sure, we're getting some fancy tools now, but how will they translate next update?

[Joedangod]

And Battle-fury is probably going to become Unfettered Aggression.

Would be cool if this is what Cataclysmic Shout was repurposed into. I.e. give Unfettered Aggression the damage/animation of cataclysmic shout whilst it applies your damage buff. Cataclysmic Shout itself feels like a thing that's only really fitting in red, so preserving that awesome animation would be cool and it'd make Unfettered Aggression feel pretty good to press from a feedback PoV.

[DanteIL]

That's a lot of thoughts...

[CaerArianrhod]

And it's factually incorrect that Guardian had any bearing on the Shelob fight until after the many nerfs to that fight as well as Guardian getting buffs.

It is factually absolutely correct. If you don't understand a statement, you should ask for clarification before you add a comment to it.

Shelob fight, with the corruption removal, is a horrible example of his point as Guardian wasn't used for months in that fight and people were completing it.
So how is it that, in his own example, this Sting change would magically affect it?
It won't.

If you don't understand a statement, you should ask for clarification before you add a comment to it.
Take an actual fight: Sagroth. If you don't play the kite queen with your guardian, but doing the encounter instead the other way, a guardian is the best corruption removal class. Just as an example of stacking corruption. Adding longer CD to sting will affect many encounters like such and just make fights longer again.

Point is, Guardian is by far the most consistent Corruption remover in the game. Yeah, you have Wardens and Minstrels who can arguably done more, but those two are sacrificing damage or healing to get their CR's in, Guardian, in any specialization, doesn't sacrifice anything.

There is something a guardian has to bring as benefit to the group compared to other tanks. Corruption removal is such a benefit.

[...] I'm struggling to see how people think this is good for the game.
The original nerf idea was really good, adding an extra second to the cooldown per removed debuff. And even with this change, it will still be, by far, the best self-cleanse skill in the game.

Can we stop pretending that just because Guardian was always on the fringe of a bad state that it makes it inexcusable to see nerfs to certain aspects of it? I could go on with a lot more examples, like Reversal giving you 100% uptime on CC immunity with very little investment...

You are struggling with a lot of things lately.
Can you stop pretending that just because you are playing a guardian, you would know what the best for the class and for the game is? Thank you.

[zipfile]

Would be cool if this is what Cataclysmic Shout was repurposed into. I.e. give Unfettered Aggression the damage/animation of cataclysmic shout whilst it applies your damage buff. Cataclysmic Shout itself feels like a thing that's only really fitting in red, so preserving that awesome animation would be cool and it'd make Unfettered Aggression feel pretty good to press from a feedback PoV.

The animation in question:


It looks amazing and it would be a real shame to let lament on such an underwhelming skill....

[zipfile]

It is factually absolutely correct. If you don't understand a statement, you should ask for clarification before you add a comment to it.

Didn't you make a statement saying that Remmorchant was too difficult to beat in the latter part of the level cap's cycle? How many clears were done with this amazing Guardian's CR before the fight's enrage timer got massively extended and cooldown lowered on Sting....

Take an actual fight: Sargtoth.

Hahahahahahahaha. I'm done.

You are struggling with a lot of things lately.
Can you stop pretending that just because you are playing a guardian, you would know what the best for the class and for the game is? Thank you.

Again, Remmorchant was very difficult in its latter days...

[Rino90]

sting is too good of a skill to have it on or to nerf the CD of, so moving it to stagger would be nice. adding a new skill for it might be a pain really, but moving it away from sting is definitely the way to go.

Stagger is currently part of the solo target rotation. In 3 minutes it does comparable or even slightly more damage than Hammer Down. It has great animation, and for centuries the combination of Sting, Retaliation and Stagger has been a significant and incredibly fast source of Guardian damage. I don't think removing Stagger from the solo rotation is the right thing to do.

For me, the most unsightly of the default guardian skills right now is Vexing Blow. It doesn't have any additional effects, it's not part of response chains, its original role as a threatening skill isn't relevant now, and if you remember its past, it used to be a solo targeting skill and only turned into an AOE with a separate talent. But on the other hand, an additional AOE skill, even if it's not the strongest one, may be in demand based on the variant of changes proposed by Orion.

Based on what we have, I would still prefer the new corruption removal skill.

[Aurora7]

Orion:

Thank you for a lively "back & forth" session, spread over your weekend, here on this forum.

I **think** that I understood most of it.

I defer to those at lvl 140 with an intimate knowledge of group mechanics at T3/T4/T5.
The changes do appear to also be beneficial to those solo landscapers, at higher difficulty levels, on Treebeard.

Looking forward to testing the Guardian changes, whenever this occurs, on BR.

Regards
Aurora7

[Geremir]

After yesterday's discussion I went back to the whiteboard in my head and started thinking more about the potential changes. Again, this is just an evolution of the thinking based on feedback and me trying to piece the puzzle together.

If there is no mention of the trait it means it will remain untouched.

First of all Orion, thank you for your time and efforts you done already!

The Defender of the Free

Not that it is necessary, but do you intend to give the Guardian in their ''main'' tanking line a passive morale/vitality bonus? Currently all other tanks (Beorning/Warden/Brawler/Champion) have either vitality or morale traitable bonuses in other lines. I know currently that Guardian can recompensate that with the amount of cooldowns they have. Either way just wondering what you think of having 5-10% morale bonus as a passive trait compared to the other classes who do have such bonuses in their current main ''tank'' specalization.

Guardian's Ward

Moves up to the 0 tier and takes the place of Defensive Expertise

Initially that looks promising. Do you plan to keep it like Tireless Defender(Guardian's Ward reducing power)? Glad that Relentless Assault remains the same! Finesse is a very good stat for a tanking Guardian (shame that the new Gwathrenost Raid doesn't offer a lot of their new jewels that are coming soon, something to keep in mind in future maybe!)

Adaptability

When you are hit by an attack you gain a mitigation bonus to the damage source (physical or tactical) that stacks up to 3 times for 20s

Good change and definitely more impactful then BPE rating. I am a bit worried about losing the Defensive Expertise(5% block - tier 0 trait) in combination with this though that your healing you get from Bolstering Blocks (tier 25 - set-trait bonus) might get affected. In fights with a lot of mobs you really notice quite some healing from Bolstering Blocks, hence im asking.


Don't forget about the tracery either with adaptability either then. It would need a change!

Protection by the Shield

Replaces Shield Wall as a set trait bonus

Toggle skill - not disabled by combat states

The Guardian and all Fellowship and Raid members within 40m of the guardian, reduce their incoming damage by 3%

Is Fortification for the raid still there (2% mitigation to all)? Or is this replacing it? Simultaneously this would be a great buff!

Shield Wall

Trainable

Great change to make Shield Wall an option. Although I really like the skill I can imagine that others might not find it as worthwhile, also in some occasions its not really necessary either. Good change!

Shield of Light

5 Tiers

Tier 1-4: Adds .25% inc damage reduction to Protection by the Shield/tier. Your Shield-taunt generates 3% more threat/tier.
Tier 5: Your Shield-taunt generates 3% more threat and increases targets by 1.

Just as Zipfile mentioned before I would like to see how much 3% threat actually is damagewise. Any insights on that? I cannot judge if 3% is a lot or rather low. Is it still intentional to keep Shield-Taunt a cashout skill for Break Ranks?
Personally I hold Shield-Taunt back often as I wanna keep my Break Ranks before it gets Broken Ranks and rather cash it out with a different skill instead.

Warrior's Fortitude

Passively increases Physical Mitigation, Incoming Healing, Block and Partial Block ratings.

Is this just an update of the current stats(see below)? It already is passive if you remain in combat, or do you intend to keep it passively also after being defeated in combat? Or just need to reuse it?
The incoming healing rating as it looks right now is very low as you can see!

Juggernaut

Reduces all incoming damage by 20%
You become immune to combat states.
If an attack would defeat you, instead you are restored to 30% health and Juggernaut is removed.
Duration 15s
Cooldown 3m

It's a matter of taste I guess. On one occasion I would be really happy with this change, but on the other hand Juggernaut is already quite nice as it is currently. Zipfile mentioned it before already that in certain situations this skill can be really good with 100% block rating. Also the partial reflect towards mobs helps you generating a little bit of aggro there as well, is that completely gone?
I guess I'll go with the majority of the crowd on this one. Personally I even think that this change would be fairly overpowering, but on the other hand we are talking about a capstone trait. In certain fights block rating does nothing, so it makes it impactful again!
In general good to give some thoughts to this skill since block rating does not affect ALL fights in general. This current change does however. Therefore not bad!

The Keen Blade

Retaliation and Whirling Retaliation become Breach and Whirling Breach
Gains the skill Overwhelm

Reduce Outgoing Healing by 50%.
Parry, Evade, and Shield response events increase damage by 3% stacking up to 5 times expires if out of combat for 9s.

Nice change, do we gain additional parry rating, since you plan to remove Skillful Deflection and things in red or not at all? Or you make more ways possible to get responsive skills available?
Also the base damage of some skills and bleeds needs an increase. At the end of every update the scaling of the Guardian falls behind (Zipfile mentioned the same before). Need to look into that!

Thrill of Battle

5 Tiers

Damaging Attacks in combat increase your Critical Chance by 5%/tier to a maximum of 25%
Critical removes the effect.
Duration 20s or out of combat for 9s

I really like the change, but I don't know what you mean with 20 seconds duration and critical removes the effect. Is it possible to get the critical on the most random skill possible. I can imagine a crit on Overwhelm would be way more impactful then a crit on Guardian's Ward or Vexing Blow for example? Is there a way to control this or do you intend to keep it random?
Overall I do like the change though, I just don't like to see it go to waste on a relative ''smaller'' damaging skill.

Martial Master

New Trait - replaces Skillful Deflection
5 Tiers

Guardian's Ward damage increased by 1% per tier
Guardian's Ward gains mastery bonus while active

Mastery bonus or do you intend to give a damage increase like the mastery changes? Since pretty much all classes shifted to % buffs instead? In general I like it that you wanna make Guardian's Ward impactful or needed to use again!
I am afraid if it will be mastery (with current overcapping) people might still skip this skill. Maybe something to think about!

Heavy Weapons Training

Add 1% damage to two-handed weapons/tier
Add 1% damage to melee skills/tier

Seems a fine change, although why only two-handed weapons? Maybe there are some people that intend to DPS with shield/1h sword instead? Maybe add that!

Thrust
After discussion with you all, Thrust will remain unchanged.

Good skill, does not need much indeed. Nice!

Bleed Them Dry

Moves into the 10 deep Set trait spot

With the other changes seems fine I guess.

Invigourating Response

Add Block responses to the wording

You mean this one? Currently the amount of power would need a boost, rather 10-50% rather then 1-5%. You intend to add a block response to this as well, or am I confused with another skill?
Is the block response necessary in red-line? You remove 1h(skill) damage from Heavy Weapons Training, but a block response added to this skill would need a clarification in my opinion.
In case I am confused with something else forget what I said.

Protection by the Sword

15 deep Set Trait

Toggle Skill - not interrupted by combat state effects

Increases Fellowship or Raid members Melee Damage by 5%
When a fellowship or raid member within 40, fully or partially blocks, parries, or evades an attack you opens a combat response event

Tiny increase, but seems fine!

Battle-fury

Replaces Reactive Parry

20 Deep set Trait

Increase damage by 20% for 20s
Unlock Combat Response Skills for 20s.
3m Cooldown

You intend to change some traceries for this as well? Currently we get Reactive Parry damage as a tracery, but the naming of this needs to be changed. I was confused earlier with no impact, due to the fact that old LI's did have the proper naming. Reactive parry never used to do anything. Current legacy does still affect parry responsive skills like Whirling Retalliation and Retalliation.

Warrior's Advantage

Renamed from Warrior's Fortitude

Passively enhances Physical Mastery, Melee Crit Chance, Parry and Partial Parry rating

Same question here, 47200 physical mastery. With the current mastery changes maybe a % instead?

Rupture

Replaces Honourable Combat

Hammer Down now removes all bleeeds
Increases damage for each Bleed remoce and applies Ruptured Artery (High damage 8s Bleed)
Increases incoming damage on target by 2% per removed bleed for 5s per bleed removed (counts as a debuff)

Love the change! Really nice to hear such a concept of removing all bleeds for cashout ''burst''.
I hope you make it impactful as some skills on other classes also hit currently for millions (Heartseeker - Fist of the Valar - Epic Conclusion - Coup de Grace - Unseen Strikes/Cauterizing Steel). It would do Guardian's Justice to have a really smashing skill as well as sustainable damage probably still will be lower.

Prey on the Weak

Increases damage from all skills if the target has any active bleed. (Value to be determined)

Have to see the change in action first before I can judge this. Otherwise add a incoming damage buff like a Brawler (Vunerable Strike) that affects the Guardian.

The Fighter of Shadow

Can no longer be specialized.

Love it, I think the idea you had originally in mind with a AoE-tanking line would not have done justice to the already good Blue line. AoE tanking in Blue is already the case and therefore that traitline unneccesary so I like the decision.

I really hope you keep skills like Ignore the Pain(Numbed Senses trait), Demoralizing Anthem (War-Chant targets + range), Redirect and Vicious Rebuttal (Reflect/Damage negate up to 35%) and Thrill of Danger with Bring on the Pain unchanged. These skills are absolutely perfect already as they are!

Force Opening

Trainable

Seems fine!

Bastion of Light

Bastion of Light
Trainable skill

Places a 10m hotspot at the Guardian's feet that deals a small amount of light damage to all targets within. Place a mark on all affected argets making them more susceptible to debuffs applied by the Gurdian
Duration 15s
Cooldown 20s

Hearten completely gone or? I saw you are leaning toward cutting Mark of Permanence and Manifested Ire completely. Make sense since these skills are not very impactful or don't work on ''bosses'' really anyway since they have immunity to slows other attack duration debuffs.
Also what kind of debuffs are intended? Incoming damage or just attack duration/slow

Defensive Expertise

5 Tiers
Increase Parry and Block by 1%/tier

Forget what I wrote earlier about some skill fusing together, since yellow is utility it makes sense that this skill or option is here!

Light-touched

5 Tiers
Tier 1: Can Block with 2-hand weapons
Tiers 1 - 5:
+1% Melee Damage/Tier
+1% Incoming Healing/tier

Stacks with High-Spirited?

Looks good though!

Radiate

3 Tiers

Increases the range of Bastion of Light by 5m for 1st two tiers
Increases the range of Bastion of Light by 10m for 3rd tier
AoE attacks have a 10% chance to spread to +1 marked targets/tier

It's usefullness fully depends on what debuffs are coming from Bastion of Light. Since that is still a bit unclear I cannot say whether its good or not. Attack duration and slow buffs are not as impactful I am afraid.
Is it possible to make more bleeds from red to spread this way through Bastion of Hope? That would be great though!

Tenderize

5 Tiers
Fully or Partially Parrying, Blocking or Evading grants you bonus Critical Rating.
Expires if out of combat for 9 seconds.

Same again, rating or %? With mastery changes I would opt for % over rating. Does not have to be more then 2-3%.

Flash of Light

Increases damage dealt by Bastion of Light by 10%
Increases duration of Bastion of Light by 5s
While within Bastion of Light, melee skills deal Light damage

If everything adds up it will look nice. All melee skills will do light damage within Bastion of Light?

High-spirited

Now requires 15+ traits in The Fighter of Shadow

Does that mean another 5% incoming healing on top of Light-Touched mentioned above, seems good for more utility towards tanking.

Protected by the Light

Adds a 30% reduction to combat state effects to Protection by the Shield
Adds a small reflective damage shield to Protected by the Sword

Looks fine to me, 1% BPE from protection right now seems rather weak. I would like to see that changed in a proper way. This seems to be a step in the right direction.

Warrior's Guile

Replaces Warrior's Fortitude

Passivle enhances Tactical Mitigation, Critical Defense, Evade and Partial Evade ratings

I'm leaning toward cutting Mark of Permanence and Manifested Ire completely.

Open for discussion - if you'd like.

Warriors Guile and Fortitude not stackable from two different traitlines as before? Seems fine otherwise, just keep an eye on the stats as in the other traitlines!

Overall it looks really nice so far Orion. Guardian is already in a good spot some tweaks and increases to red and utility to some skills in yellow line would make it work.

- Blue line looks good just a tiny morale bump maybe just like other ''tanking classes''
- Red line needs a base damage and bleed increase (need to look into this since Guardian might be falling behind at the end of the next level cap again otherwise)
- Yellow line changes as utility line is really good. Some skills however need to be UNCHANGED (Numbed Senses(Ignore the Pain), Redirect/Vicious Rebuttal, Thrill of Danger and Bring on the Pain, Demoralizing Anthem). I don't hear anything of the set-trait Hearten though, does that stay or go? Or does Bastion of Light replace that?
Do you also intend to keep Cataclysmic Shout/Bolster as it is? Pretty decent both too. Especially Cataclysmic shout has a really nice animation, but it's effect does not work really work properly.

Thanks!

[Tepee]

The animation in question:


It looks amazing and it would be a real shame to let lament on such an underwhelming skill....

As I said earlier, it would be a nice trigger ability for Break Ranks:

"Reasons why it's so fitting:
- Neither Shield-taunt nor Smashing Stab is useful to trigger Break Ranks becuse they have their own use cases.
- Class fantasy: breaking the ranks in a cataclysmic shout, to indicate fellows now is the time to go full brr. Also very loud and visible, good choice for indicating this.
- The AoE stun gives the opportunity to quickly build back Fortification, at least against trash mobs."

Speaking of, am I correct that Break Ranks haven't got any proposed changes from Orion? Sorry, too many changes here, hard to track.

The other thing in the blue line is that Relentless Assault should move to yellow, because it is a staple for both lines.
Maybe move High-spirited to blue in place of this, and give it a 1-5% max morale too. Compared to Light-touched, it is now very inferior, and since they want to nerf red healing, it is only fitting that they move this to blue.

[Tepee]

You intend to change some traceries for this as well? Currently we get Reactive Parry damage as a tracery but is not very impactful. This new skill looks really good though, although we need to see a change in some traceries here as well I think?

Excusez-moi?

This is the single best tracery ever for the red line, as it ever was, even in the old(er, imbued) legendary system.

I can say, yes, they messed up the naming of this tracery, because it boosts the damage of every parry response skill, Retaliation, Thrust, To the King, everything.
That means combined with the dedicated skill traceries, it's over +70% damage on e.g. Whirling Retaliation, making it one of the hardest hitting AoE in the game!

I'm very sad that after like 7 years when this legacy (now called tracery) was introduced, there are still Guardians who do not understand it's effect.

I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the devs who had a poor choice naming this legacy/tracery, and still haven't fixed it.
We could use a name change for this, sure. Other than that, leave it as it is.

[Thunderblast]

Not that it is necessary, but do you intend to give the Guardian in their ''main'' tanking line a passive morale/vitality bonus? Currently all other tanks (Beorning/Warden/Brawler/Champion) have either vitality or morale traitable bonuses in other lines. I know currently that Guardian can recompensate that with the amount of cooldowns they have. Either way just wondering what you think of having 5-10% morale bonus as a passive trait compared to the other classes who do have such bonuses in their current main ''tank'' specalization.

I hear you, but this is, in my opinion, a bad idea. Enormous morale bloat should be a thing for the other tank classes (Wardens get a whopping +20%, Cappies and Beornings are not too far behind themselves). Guardians should be able to survive not by having lots of morale, but by being better at preserving their morale than other tank classes.

It's a matter of taste I guess. On one occasion I would be really happy with this change, but on the other hand Juggernaut is already quite nice as it is currently. Zipfile mentioned it before already that in certain situations this skill can be really good with 100% block rating. Also the partial reflect towards mobs helps you generating a little bit of aggro there as well, is that completely gone?
I guess I'll go with the majority of the crowd on this one. Personally I even think that this change would be fairly overpowering, but on the other hand we are talking about a capstone trait. In certain fights block rating does nothing, so it makes it impactful again!
In general good to give some thoughts to this skill since block rating does not affect ALL fights in general. This current change does however. Therefore not bad!

Also agree here.... Kind of. Mostly. Better imo would be to buff Juggernaut to have additional effects, but increase the cooldown considerably to account. How about:

- Juggernaut also adds 100% resist chance.
- Whenever you take damage while Juggernaut is active, 100% of the damage is negated, and 30% of your max morale is subtracted.
- Cooldown increases to 5 minutes so that it's not OP

This would simultaneously update Juggernaut to be useful in more situations, without it being a cheap copy of some other skill (atm it's an awful lot like Pledge, Orion's change would make it an awful lot like Never Surrender). While your proposal of finding fights where block isn't meaningful and reworking them so that block chance matters is great, it would require an enormous amount of dev effort, so I doubt the devs would be willing to do it. Better to just do the above and have the time to work on other reworks and things.

[Rino90]

Mastery bonus or do you intend to give a damage increase like the mastery changes? Since pretty much all classes shifted to % buffs instead? In general I like it that you wanna make Guardian's Ward impactful or needed to use again!
I am afraid if it will be mastery (with current overcapping) people might still skip this skill. Maybe something to think about!

Red Guardian is lacking in damage stats right now. They have to be compensated by a large number of essences, which in turn affects the damage mitigation rates, so any bonus to crits and mastery ratings will be important.

It's usefullness fully depends on what debuffs are coming from Bastion of Light. Since that is still a bit unclear I cannot say whether its good or not. Attack duration and slow buffs are not as impactful I am afraid.
Is it possible to make more bleeds from red to spread this way through Bastion of Hope? That would be great though!

There is also a debuff on outgoing damage from War-chant and a debuff on incoming damage from the red talent Rupture. I find the latter especially interesting to use with the yellow line talents.

[Tepee]

Heavy weapons training
-You reduced the value of this, but since damage values will be adjusted to tune overall damage either way, the implication is that you either want this one trait to be relatively less appealing compared to others than it was before, or you want less incentive to go 2h over SaB. Either reason is fine, but im curious what your intention was here?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that weapon damage boosts are the "good" kind of damage increase, as it goes to the "MultMod":

Damage = BaseDamage * SkillMults * (1 + Mastery% ) * (1 + AddMod% + AddMod% + AddMod% ... ) * MultMod * MultMod* ...

From what I understand, this makes 2h damage higher than before, but still giving substantial increase to SNB Guards.
(Again, I like the fact that they differentiate the two styles, I can see the hard work Orion puts in it to not anger nether 2h nor SNB Guards, but still give both some identity, very neat!)

So basically this means that the current Heavy Weapons Training gives a diminishing +10% boost (or a somewhat better kind of 10% if it goes to the "SkillMults", not sure.)

First case: HWT goes to (1 + AddMod% + AddMod% + AddMod% ... )

Old stat: with all buffs and things, let's say x160% (from x150%, wild estimation)

New 1h: x155% instead of the old x160%, it's a ~3,2% decrease in damage (not a deal-breaker when shields got so much stuff for compromise!)
New 2h: x155% x105% = 163% instead of the old 160%, so a ~1,7% damage increase.

Net difference is ~5% between the two lines, I think it is only fair that this compensates 2-handers for the fact that SNB will be a more interesting choice now. (I'll probably still go for 2h, but we'll se.)

Second case: HWT goes to SkillMults, because it says "+ skill damage"

Harder to estimate, because we have skills that do not have any damage boosts (like Stagger), and some has ~+70%, like Whirling Ret, TtKing, etc. (with Reactive Parry tracery + dedicated tracery)
Let's say its average +35%.

Old stat: x145% (from x135%)

New 1h: x140% instead of x145%, so ~3,6% damage decrease. Still in a no prob spot I think.
New 2h: x140% x105% = x147% instead of the old x145%, which is a ~1,4% increase.

Again, around 5% difference, but not how you think. Not 2h remains the same and SNB loses 5%, it's more complicated than that.

Note that in the fist case, HWT didn't have that big of a role, so de nerf for 1h is less impactful, and more comes with the new 2h weapon damage in comparison. The opposite is true for the second case, higher loss form the skill damage loss basically.

Anyway, I just wanted to show, that if my information is correct, +weapon damage is the killer type of damage increase, so this is not just simply a nerf to SNB, but a buff to 2h as well.

I'm not a developer, I can't access to these equations, these are all my estimations only.
(But I'll be glad to be one, where to send my CV Orion? )

[James_25]

With some of the legacy content, and even current content needing so many corruption removals, i don't like taking it off sting. yes it may be a "free" removal since its so easy to use. but that is some of what a guard can bring to a group. relying on a hunter to do corruption removals in a three man is brutal, especially in Sant Leor. boss almost always heals to full. stuff like that. i very much vote against moving it from sting or increasing cooldown.

[Geremir]

Excusez-moi?

This is the single best tracery ever for the red line, as it ever was, even in the old(er, imbued) legendary system.

I can say, yes, they messed up the naming of this tracery, because it boosts the damage of every parry response skill, Retaliation, Thrust, To the King, everything.
That means combined with the dedicated skill traceries, it's over +70% damage on e.g. Whirling Retaliation, making it one of the hardest hitting AoE in the game!

I'm very sad that after like 7 years when this legacy (now called tracery) was introduced, there are still Guardians who do not understand it's effect.

I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming the devs who had a poor choice naming this legacy/tracery, and still haven't fixed it.
We could use a name change for this, sure. Other than that, leave it as it is.

You are right, however with the imbued system this used to be called(used to be 300-400% reactive parry damage - can't fully recall the %) for this skill. As a matter of fact I have it on my red legendary item, but the naming is something to be wished for.
Also considering the size of my post it wouldn't surprise me if I ####ed up there in the first place. It does affect indeed multiple skills, but I would take out the ''Parry'' element and rather keep it on Responsive Skill Damage instead.

[Rino90]

It does affect indeed multiple skills, but I would take out the ''Parry'' element and rather keep it on Responsive Skill Damage instead.

In this case, the strongest skills of the block chain will be affected by three traceries at once. I think the traceries for response skills now look pretty logical. There are separate traceries for the main skills of each chain, and there are traceries that reinforce all the skills of one of the response chains.

[zipfile]

In this case, the strongest skills of the block chain will be affected by three traceries at once. I think the traceries for response skills now look pretty logical. There are separate traceries for the main skills of each chain, and there are traceries that reinforce all the skills of one of the response chains.

I would rather have unified all those traceries under "Parry Response damage" and "Block Response damage" traceries while raising the values of all the skills that would lose the traceries.

[Tralfazz]

Currently, Brutal Assault requires 11 (!) class trait points to make it fully effective. Perhaps this could be changed to something simple, a 1-5/5 trait:
1: Earn the skill Brutal Assault.
2: Brutal Assault applies a bleed on a successful hit.
3: Response skills have a 33% chance to reset the cooldown of Brutal Assault.
4: Response skills have a 66% chance to reset the cooldown of Brutal Assault.
4: Response skills have a 100% chance to reset the cooldown of Brutal Assault.

Change the chance to reset to 20%/35%/50% if you want it to always be some kind of dice roll instead of a guaranteed cooldown reset when fully traited.

[Thunderblast]

Currently, Brutal Assault requires 11 (!) class trait points to make it fully effective. Perhaps this could be changed to something simple, a 1-5/5 trait:
1: Earn the skill Brutal Assault.
2: Brutal Assault applies a bleed on a successful hit.
3: Response skills have a 33% chance to reset the cooldown of Brutal Assault.
4: Response skills have a 66% chance to reset the cooldown of Brutal Assault.
4: Response skills have a 100% chance to reset the cooldown of Brutal Assault.

Change the chance to reset to 20%/35%/50% if you want it to always be some kind of dice roll instead of a guaranteed cooldown reset when fully traited.

I second this.

The most confusing thing about the current setup, is that you can buy the reset chance before you even have access to the bleed mechanic. What's wrong here is that Brutal Assault has such a low base damage (not that much higher than Sting, tbh), AND such a long animation, that, before you can buy Haemmorhage, there's literally no reason that you'd want buy Brutal Assault, much less use it (due to the endless animation), much less spend 5 additional trait points so that you can reset it to use it more often and waste even more time.

My understanding is that the devs don't want to cheapen the trait. Rather, they should make it more worth the high trait cost. Ideally, this would mean amping up the base damage so that there's a plausible reason that a player would train the skill before they could also train Hem Wound, and make Hem Wound also cause the rest of your bleeds to be more damaging. Then the traits would actually be worth it.

Also Hem Wound should apply the bleed at rank one and then higher ranks increase bleed damage overall.

[Rino90]

I second this.

The most confusing thing about the current setup, is that you can buy the reset chance before you even have access to the bleed mechanic. What's wrong here is that Brutal Assault has such a low base damage (not that much higher than Sting, tbh), AND such a long animation, that, before you can buy Haemmorhage, there's literally no reason that you'd want buy Brutal Assault, much less use it (due to the endless animation), much less spend 5 additional trait points so that you can reset it to use it more often and waste even more time.

My understanding is that the devs don't want to cheapen the trait. Rather, they should make it more worth the high trait cost. Ideally, this would mean amping up the base damage so that there's a plausible reason that a player would train the skill before they could also train Hem Wound, and make Hem Wound also cause the rest of your bleeds to be more damaging. Then the traits would actually be worth it.

Also Hem Wound should apply the bleed at rank one and then higher ranks increase bleed damage overall.

The Tireless Blows talent is very strange. You only need it to use Brutal Assault every 10 seconds. And there is no point in using it more often, even with Haemorrhage talent, because bleeding does not stack. Maybe it would be better to reduce Brutal Assault cooldown to 10 seconds, and change Tireless Blows to increase Brutal Assault's direct damage? Or add the ability to stack the effects of bleeding from Brutal Assault, which would force players to use it more often when Tireless Blows is triggered. Although to be honest I hate random mechanics, especially when rotation depends on them.

[Aurora7]

Orion:

Heavy-weapons Damage All skill damage increases by 1% per tier.
All 2-handed weapons damage is inreased by 2% per tier.

The increase of DPS to the 2H is good: now use of the 2H has greater incentive.

The 1H + Sh has lower DPS, but does have the advantage of the shield stats.
Could the Heavy-weapons Damage trait also apply a small debuff to the mob when hit with the shield?

This could open some interesting choices and play styles.

Regards
Aurora7

[Dan_Kori]

Next up is the biggest change. After reading the feedback here and listening to discussions in game, we will be removing The Fighter of Shadow as a spec line.

Well ####, I guess that's the second time you're going to make me abandon the game. I don't even know why I'm surprised, it's been utterly clear through all the leftover mess along the way that you all only care about end game players, and not about casual players and their journey at all. >.<

[Thunderblast]

Well ####, I guess that's the second time you're going to make me abandon the game. I don't even know why I'm surprised, it's been utterly clear through all the leftover mess along the way that you all only care about end game players, and not about casual players and their journey at all. >.<

I'm not sure what you mean. I play mostly solo and these changes look great to me.

The best way to look at this is as a huge buff to yellow line: you can still effectively spec it, since most of the traits that made it what it was will still be available for purchase, but you can get your choice of red or blue set bonuses for free, as well as the trait points spent at 1:1 ratio in whatever other line you picked (blue or red) once you've filled out yellow to your heart's content.

[Technician46]

Bastion of Light

Bastion of Light
Trainable skill

Places a 10m hotspot at the Guardian's feet that deals a small amount of light damage to all targets within. Place a mark on all affected targets making them more susceptible to debuffs applied by the Gurdian
Duration 15s
Cooldown 20s

Radiate

3 Tiers

Increases the range of Bastion of Light by 5m for 1st two tiers
Increases the range of Bastion of Light by 10m for 3rd tier
AoE attacks have a 10% chance to spread to +1 marked targets/tier


Flash of Light

Increases damage dealt by Bastion of Light by 10%
Increases duration of Bastion of Light by 5s
While within Bastion of Light, melee skills deal Light damage




Hi Orion, I've been giving "Bastion of Light" and the other skills/effects associated w/ it some thought. I feel that making it a hot spot will not be good ideas because some of the raid/instance and delving mechanics will basically negate these skills/effect. For example:

1. Puddles = will have to be constantly moving out of them and therefore rendering the hot spot useless along w/ all the other skills/effect associated w/ Bastion of Light.

2. Eyes (and the associated effective) = will force the guard to move. A good example of this is Sagroth and the yellow eye someone in the group, including the tank, get.

3. Punts = will move the guard out of the hot spot rendering "Bastion of Light and the associated skills/effect less effective or useless.

4. Kiting = will render Bastion of light and associated skills/effects completely useless.

I think a better solution would be an AURA around the guard w/ the same effects. Please reconsider the HOT SPOT idea.
Thank You