Originally Posted by
Rorrelm
Concerning blue line being fine:
I see a lot of posts here agreeing with the sentiment that blue line is a good state. I disagree completely with this idea.
One aspect is that a class being strong does not mean it functions well or is fun to play. Yellow burglar lends its entire existance from disable, the line is used almost everywhere because of its strength. The line however is terrible to play.
The same applies to blue guardian if you look closely at it. Almost all of its fun and half its strength comes from cross traiting to yellow. On its own the class is lame. The thing that makes blue guardian dynamic is war chant (cd reduction), ignore pain, thrill of danger and most of all redirect. All aspects of the yellow line. Blue line itself grants you fortification, smashing stab, juggernaut and break ranks. All of which have clear issues.
Break ranks triggering from shield taunt makes the shield skills awkward.
Fortification duration being infinite means that shield skills lose meaning when you are at max stacks.
Juggernaut straight up setting block to 100% is far too strong.
Smashing stab is a cool skill, just change the icon based on what stage it is in.
That is what you are left with if you do not look at yellow line. Blue line really does not work well. It even has traits like shield spikes, which should just be baseline.
Yellow on the other hand has all traits that make guardian dynamic with the previously mentioned cross traited skills. On top of this it has a cool identity with take to heart. Sadly its damage output has been severly hampered by previous nerfs and its debuffs are not as good, but the way it works is interesting. Most of all it is fun to play.
Since blue line really does not work without yellow traits could mean it can be a utility line, but I would disagree as the identity of the yellow line far outweights the quality and fun of blue line.
Ideas for changes:
Now to more ideas on possible changes that could make guardian a lot more fun and well balanced. I don't play dps classes so I am not going to comment much on red line besides saying it feels the smoothest playing dps line in the game and I would love for it to be better.
General Skills:
Engage should have the same or more range than your other melee skills. It currently sits at 4.7m while your melee range is 5.2m. It got left behind with the range update while in the past this skill would actually have more range than your melee skills.
Guardians ward animation should be sped up considerably.
Ignore the pain should not be an immediate.
Blue skills:
Shield taunt should not be the opener for break ranks.
Shield wall should be moved down from a 100% absorb to a lower absorb 20-40% to allow for wider use case for the skill. Helping someone in your raid to survive a certain mechanic this amount is plenty without causing too much stress on the guard. Now it is only really useable for lower instances of damage.
Litany of defiance needs a couple changes to avoid exploits or just changed completely. The effect it applies needs to fall off when the guardian dies to avoid a lot of absorbed damage being voided. On top of this the damage absorb should be nerfed by 50% to 5% per fort stack.
Guardian's pledge is far too strong as it is now and it fills the same space as juggernaut so I would suggest changing the working of this skill. I would suggest either increasing defenses of the guardian itself (moving the mit doubling from litany here) and/or cashing out the shield the people buff on your raid that gives more protection for a short time so it acts as a raid cooldown. I would also change the animation of it personally.
In the case of redirect being moved away from blue line this is the perfect candidate to replace a short cd defensive.
Smashing stab is pretty much an amazing skill. There should be more skills like this in the game.
Juggernaut I suggest changing 100% block to 100% partial block as 100% block is just far too strong in many cases. Partial block allows for a massive reduction in damage while not avoiding it completely, coupled with the heal on block this skill would still be one of the strongest cds in the game. Also potentially reduce the cooldown and duration to 2min/10s.
Shield smash needs more reason to be used if you are at full fortification (which can be done through fort too see down below), I suggest increasing the damage shield smash does based on targets hit by shield taunt/sweeping cut/vexing blow by 20% per target hit stacking up to 5 times.
Blue Traits:
Relentless assault should retain its finesse.
Fortification: the whole interactions with this should change to be more interactive. Currently the infinite duration of fortifcation does not allow for a lot of interesting gameplay. I suggest changing fortification to a duration stacking buff. Everytime you use a shield skill fortification is applied to guardian, a step away from a chance to apply (or on crit). There is still the stacking nature but also stacking duration. Every shield skill adds 5 seconds to the duration up to a maximum of 15 seconds. This makes it so a guardian has to actively maintain their fortification to stay tanky. I would also change the total mitigation bonus at max rank to 15% but only if we ever get to the point where tanks get less tanky and the heavy mitigation cap is 20% lower.
Follow through should get an extra rank and have the damage increases mechanic mentioned earlier applied to it.
Disorientation should acts as bpe and resist penetration for the guardian as the only really dealing with block and parry tends to be the tank anyway.
Warrior's fortitude should not be infinite duration.
Improved shield spikes should be removed as a trait and moved to base line of guardian. It makes no sense for a trait to exist that forces players to have a seperate trait line to apply shield spikes and a main trait line where they do not lose these trait points.
Break ranks should give the guardian double the amount of damage bonus.
Red Skills:
Protection by the sword, make this applicable raid wide (not sure if it already is) and whenever you score a critical hit with to the king heal your protection by the sword target and yourself for [2-5]% of your max health.
Yellow skills:
Stagger should always apply in yellow line, not only on crit or positional.
Protection should you and your ally when either of you BPEs an attack for [2-5]% of max health. Has a cooldown. The range of this skill should be extended from 10m range to 30m.
War chant should have greatly increased max targets [3 -> 10], to really make this your main line skill. (Only in yellow)
Thrill of danger should only be available for yellow line. Its healing has to be changed too, currently it heals far too much if many attacks or too little in case of few.
Redirect damage negation should start at 0% on the skill. Yellow line gives it 10% extra. The trait gives it up to 20% extra. So yellow line ends up with 30% absorb and other lines with 20%. The reflect should not be a % reflect to avoid your damage just being the enemies damage. It should instead reflect light damage that scales on from the guardians stats. This reflect normally is single target, but in yellow line it becomes aoe. If you bpe a hit while redirect is up the reflect damage should be doubled.
Cataclysmic Shout should be... well.. cataclysmic.
Yellow traits:
Blue line has mitigation to be tanky, yellow line should get its tankiness from increased healing capabilities. This does require more max health as your health sort of becomes your resource. I would suggest granting the yellow guardian 30% extra morale if in yellow and while wielding a 2h weapon. A yellow guardian should not be disarmable.
Take to heart being a hotspot skill is actually a quite cool idea. A lot of skills can be empowered while in this hotspot too.
Healing for 5% of your morale from attacks done against targets in your hotspot should not be implemented like this. It gives too little control, rather have your healing source come from somewhere else. It currently provides massive heals for your AoE skills, but I would rather have a more fun and controlable interaction for healing.
Insult to injury should be changed to damage every target inside your hotspot to take damage if they are targetting the guardian.
Take to heart should only be available if you are wielding a 2h weapon. This does require more importance being placed on your non shield skills as you otherwise don't have enough skills to use. Or shield skills should get a version that is useable by a 2h weapon, instead of the stun type effects they should inflict an effect connected to take to heart.
While in your hotspot warchant, Cataclysmic Shout, retaliation, (vexing blow, sweeping cut) heal you for X% of damage dealt. This will allow a tank to heal quite well through this for aoe scenarios but it will not be as effective for ST situations.
Numbed senses is too strong at the moment and I agree it should be reduced to max 2 removals.
Bolster should be moved from a passive stacking buff to a more active interaction where it stacks based on skill use. Vexing blow might a perfect candidate for this. On use it will instantly give max value for a duration.
Tenderize, same as bolster. Potentially move this trait to red line by swapping it with reactive parry. Reactive parry will be worked into the new redirect.
Redirect + vicious rebuttal changes mentioned above.
Strong bursts increases healing of damage skills on take to heart as well as AoE damage.
Singular focus should be changed to give a large light mitigation penetration to the guardian's skills. This trait should swap position with Warrior's fortitude.
Bring on the pain should also restore % power on hit at max rank.
Warrior's fortitude reduces the heal from warriors heart to be the same as the max health increase and increases incoming healing by 20%. But also allows the warchant cd reduction to work on warrior's heart at 1/2 effectiveness.
Cataclysmic Shout should be moved to initial skill for yellow line and replaced by a new capstone trait. This capstone trait should turn Cataclysmic Shout into a more defensive skill. It still retains it offensive skill (with max targets increased from 5 -> 15), but afterwards a defensive buff is applied to the guardian. This defensive buff could be half offensively oriented as your healing is also tied to your damage. For example after using cataclysmic shout your max health is increased by 20%, you will take 30% less damage and do 20% more light damage. Warchant reduces the cooldown of this skill at 1/5 effectiveness.
Incapacitation should also cause warchant to heal outside of the take to heart hotspot.
Yellow line has the potential to be the coolest tanking line by far. Don't let me down.