More Guardian Thoughts

[zipfile]

...would remove some of the class identity and would make the Guardian class feel more pointless, with all of the buttons available and you just kind of push the best ones when they're off cd. This sounds like it would make Guardian gameplay more like Champions, Burglars, and Lore-Masters where all decision-making is made before the fight (arranging your rotation and practicing it so that it's second-nature) as opposed split-second decisions mid-fight that make it impossible to design a meta rotation (as is the case atm with the response chains and such).

Care to post a parse, please?

Cause...like...what? On what basis do any of these play in a similar fashion?

[Thunderblast]

Care to post a parse, please?

Cause...like...what? On what basis do any of these play in a similar fashion?

They (Burg, LM, Champ) don't necessarily play in a similar fashion to one another. The main thing they have in common is that, for the most part, they all have a majority (not all, exceptions include Riposte, DES and FB) of their skills are available for use (not considering cooldowns) at any given moment. I don't have much experience with any of these classes though. My main is a Guardian and my closest alt is a Warden. I'm sure I'm missing lots of nuance about when is best to use certain skills and other classes in general. However, as I understand it, a player can form a rotation of skills that will work fairly reliably in any situation. Obviously, a player might choose to deviate from the rotation in order to react to a situation, however most of the skills are still available most of the time.

From reading your previous post, I see you like the idea of the Guardian being less dependent on unreliable blocks and parries. Maybe a good way for all players to be happy would be to add a trait deep into red line (maybe on the same level as Warrior's Fortitude and Blind Rage) that gives a stance-like skill (similar to Brawler postures). Call this skill Eager Assault or something. While the skill is active, Retaliation, Whirling Retaliation, and Catch a Breath are all changed so that they are no longer response skills and no longer require a parry to execute. Catch a Breath is further altered so that, instead of restoring morale and power, it resets most attack cooldowns (Brutal Assault, Hammer Down, Stamp, TTK and the rest of the ex-parry-chain). However, while this skill is active, you will not be able to block, parry, or evade incoming attacks.

I know it sounds like a stance, and SSG has communicated that they're not too keen on re-introducing stances. However, with the Brawler, they introduced not one but two similar stance-like toggles. Such a toggle might, at least partially, solve two problems: 1) it would satisfy multiple Guardian play-styles, and 2) it would help make red Guardians feel less clunky in a group setting (having multiple large self-heals that are only used occasionally due to not being frequently hit, as was mentioned in your earlier post). Another idea would have a trait that makes TTK have a chance to proc an enhanced version of Blind Rage that makes response skills available without a parry for a short duration, or something else.

You (Zipfile) have been playing for longer than I have, though, so your voice should carry more weight than mine. I just wonder if there's a middle ground that would make all different Guardian play-styles happy.

[Tepee]

Dear Thinderblast, thank you for the complements.

The few things that I'm not quite on the same page as Tepee on is the Honorable Combat group-heal (imo group healing shouldn't be a thing for Guards, that should be maybe one of few couple things that Captanks are better at) and the High-spirited max morale increase (morale bloat is a second thing that Captanks should do better than Guardians, Guardians should have less morale but lose the morale that they have so much slower that they are slightly better off in the long run).

I love the idea with the new Guardian's Pledge damage-capping, however I would rather see this effect go to Juggernaut. Guardian's Pledge is a core skill and has been around for a very long time, so I'd rather leave it be and let Juggernaut be the boss cd skill. But that's just me.

As I said, this is just a general perspective from me.

The thing is with Juggernaut and Guardian's pledge is these two essentially does the same thing, and should be separated in effect imo. If Pledge should be the same, and Juggernaut gives something else, that's fine by me too.

Honorable Combat: I want to save this skill so much, cause I like the class/skill fantasy so much! I can imagine a bubble, or something similar instead of the healing too, and of course maybe giving it higher cooldown to not make it to a general rotation, but I think a heal/support emergency is fine in the aspect of "protecting others", even if the general effect of group healing is not a Guardian thing.

High-spirited max morale increase: 5% incoming healing and 5% max morale is enough for me instead. But keep in mind that even Minstrels have a trait that increases their max morale by 10%, so I think it would be fair.

Also, I'm aware that a lot of the my ideas are really overpowered if combined together, I really just wanted to share a picture of the synergies that can be made if yellow were removed, and of course all of the skills and traits would need a rebalance if such a radical change would take place.

[Tepee]

I don't know if you should get rid of the two-hander guardian concept or just make snb a really competitive option.

I want to stress, that there are two groups, mine, as we want Guardians the option of going 2-handed for a reason (if sword and board would give the same damage that would be pointless), and yours, who wants snb viable for dps.
At the last thread about the Guardians, Orion proposed changes that would shift the playstyle your way, now he proposed something (with Heavy Weapons Training) that would change the playstyle my way.
I think these two groups should co-exist, and we should find a solution where I can enjoy 2h leveling more, and you can enjoy snb leveling more.
These two types of Guardians always were and always will be, and always should be kept in mind when doing changes.

And yes, I chose Guardian when I started playing LOTRO for the heavy shield tanking class fantasy, BUT also because it can use 2-handers, and I love 2-handers.
Imagine someone who chose Champion because they love 2-handering, but sometimes loves to dual-wield cause it's cool. And suddenly there were an update in which the option to go 2-hander were removed. Sure they would be justly angry.

[Dan_Kori]

The Fighter of Shadow

Our main objective with Fighter of Shadow is to define it's role more clearly. That is to say, not make this a supporting line, rather a line that gives the Guardian a third distinct role. That role is as an AoE Tank.

Our secondary objective, is to reduce the non-performant and abusive behavior that the line has without compromising the overall appeal of the line.

I'm a casual player, working my way through the game (currently in Rohan) with my yellow Guardian, and having a lot of fun drawing big crowds of enemies and (barely) surviving against them. Not interested in raids - just enjoying the story and the landscapes. I've been dreading the Guardian changes since I first saw your other thread. I'm having fun with my character, and really don't want to have to relearn how to play / be forced to switch to red/blue (I did enjoy the process of learning to be effective with my current setup, but that's because it was a gradual affair). As such, I'm very pleased with how reasonable these initial ideas are. It'll still be an adjustment, but it feels like a manageable one, where the biggest thing to dread is respeccing (must remember to take screenshots of my current setup).

Please try to keep as much as possible the same as before. Don't fix if it ain't broke and all that. And don't listen to all the non-yellow players wanting to get rid off the yellow line - they just want cool yellow skills for cheap!

[Tepee]

Please try to keep as much as possible the same as before. Don't fix if it ain't broke and all that. And don't listen to all the non-yellow players wanting to get rid off the yellow line - they just want cool yellow skills for cheap!

I mostly play casually too, doing the same thing with yellow if I want. But mostly I don't want, because at higher levels, I can fully trait yellow and red too.
Red and yellow in this case has a very slim difference if you choose one spec over the other.

I don't want to get rid of the yellow line, I want yellow spec to be gone, and that few traits to be accessible for all players.
Really, if you tried red, it is the same thing, but less self-heal, and bleeds instead of Flash of Light.

But okay, I'm hearing what you're saying, red has that much nothing to keep it alive. Then make Brutal Charge a purchased trait instead of set bonus, and I'll never go red line again, I'll always play yellow. That's an option too.
The thing is, for solo gameplay, only "Take to Heart" and "Brutal Charge" is fun and unique about the Guardian, and a lot of other thing is just too "stock". These two lines combined could provide something enjoyable, not to mention that would make blue line tanking better (which is the last thing I care, I mostly play solo too).

My proposal would mean you spec to red line, and you purchase every trait you just got used to in the years. Basically play yellow, but with additional benefits from the red line.
And if you are afraid of this, talk to some of your Minstrel or Warden friends who played yellow all the time, I'm almost certain that they were afraid of the changes, but got a good deal after it happened.

[Rino90]

Please try to keep as much as possible the same as before. Don't fix if it ain't broke and all that. And don't listen to all the non-yellow players wanting to get rid off the yellow line - they just want cool yellow skills for cheap!

All cool skills from the yellow line are used by guards in other lines. I would not say that because of this I do not have enough points to take something else useful, especially in the build for the blue guard. And developers need to listen to different opinions, especially when they are justified, and not caused by emotions.

[Rino90]

Stances are not something that we really want to re-introduce.

Orion, what caused this decision? Especially against the background of the introduction of a solo stance for a red captain, which is exactly what is needed to change the effects of some skills for their effective use in different game situations.
Taunts are practically useless for a red guard, so we have a number of default skills that are simply not used because of their specifics. To a lesser extent, this also applies to some buffs, such as the effect from "Guardian's Ward" and "Warrior's Heart" (max moral bonus).

[Bromlin]

I want to stress, that there are two groups, mine, as we want Guardians the option of going 2-handed for a reason (if sword and board would give the same damage that would be pointless), and yours, who wants snb viable for dps.
At the last thread about the Guardians, Orion proposed changes that would shift the playstyle your way, now he proposed something (with Heavy Weapons Training) that would change the playstyle my way.
I think these two groups should co-exist, and we should find a solution where I can enjoy 2h leveling more, and you can enjoy snb leveling more.

That's a reasonable thought. I think there should be one or two boons for each playing style, so that each has its use. All I want is a competitive snb option for dps'ing in landscape which doesn't necessarily mean it should be equal in damage output. Competitive means I can get on well enough that it never feels slow and still can survive in situations others would struggle. I admit I dream of the snb guardian as a prime soloing build that is on par with beornings and wardens: nearly unkillable while still being able to dps considerably. 2H could work as a more glass cannon like build to rush very quickly through standard mobs.

[Tepee]

That's a reasonable thought. I think there should be one or two boons for each playing style, so that each has its use. All I want is a competitive snb option for dps'ing in landscape which doesn't necessarily mean it should be equal in damage output. Competitive means I can get on well enough that it never feels slow and still can survive in situations others would struggle. I admit I dream of the snb guardian as a prime soloing build that is on par with beornings and wardens: nearly unkillable while still being able to dps considerably. 2H could work as a more glass cannon like build to rush very quickly through standard mobs.

The main benefit of SNB red line is the block chance and the block chain. The main benefit from the 2h is the ~40% more damage.
I use 2h for solo, because that plus damage is enough to AoE normal mobs if I use all my skills, and because the block chain skills are too sluggish and doesn't worth the slot in my hotbar. Also, I like the look of 2h better when I'm soloing, (I have a "Greatsword of the Citadel", Minas Tirith cosmetic, it's huge), it's like I'm an executioner.

I would say, that improving the utility of shield would benefit me too, because then I would just switch to SNB instead of switching yellow line (with 2h). Now it's just pointless to equip a shield when I can block in yellow, and I lose much less DPS then I would if I play red SNB.
But I want to keep the opportunity of 2h Guardian, because I just love the feeling. I don't play DPS in group, and I don't die in landscape, not because I'm unkillable, but because I have a balance between offence and defence, but of course tilted to offence. I stack parry to get 18-20%, and get parry event all the time, then kill that ~5-9 mobs in a Whirling Ret - War-chant - Whirling Ret combo.
I love the style that I'm throwing away my shield, and flexing that I don't need it, and whispering "I am speed" when I click on Charge.
But of course I understand who likes the opposite, and I always carry a shield, when things go wrong. The problem is... that shield doesn't help. Switching to yellow line does.
Make both styles more unique and viable in their own way, I agree.

[Rino90]

I love the style that I'm throwing away my shield...

Speaking of throwing a shield. It seems to me that from this we can make an interesting feature that would make the guard stand out in comparison with other classes of fighters. It would be cool to introduce the mechanics of using longswords (and their analogues among other types of weapons). This could be implemented by introducing stances that change some skills and effects. In addition, an ability to throw a shield behind your back and take a weapon with a two-handed grip perfectly conveys a style of combat of the guardian and solves the eternal confrontation between SNB and two-handed weapons. The basis of the new mechanics may be the use of key features of stances depending on situations due to the same recovery time for interchangeable skills. For example, specialization in solo damage in one stance and AOE in another, or additional temporary increase in own damage when holding a weapon with two hands, and group utility with a shield. In addition to the unique visual component, this would add flexibility and depth to the gameplay of the guardian.

Unfortunately, cardinal changes require a deep overhaul associated not only with the guard, but also with other aspects of the game. For example, many models of one-handed weapons would hardly be visually suitable for two-handed combat, which entails either massive remodeling or the introduction of new separate types of weapons specifically for the guard. The feasibility of such a rework is also doubtful given the labor costs, risks and low potential for monetization of changes to the old classes. But sometimes you still want to dream a little.

[SSG_Orion]

Orion, what caused this decision? Especially against the background of the introduction of a solo stance for a red captain, which is exactly what is needed to change the effects of some skills for their effective use in different game situations.
Taunts are practically useless for a red guard, so we have a number of default skills that are simply not used because of their specifics. To a lesser extent, this also applies to some buffs, such as the effect from "Guardian's Ward" and "Warrior's Heart" (max moral bonus).

Honestly, stances make a lot of sense for some classes - but not all.

Guardian doesn't feel like a class that needs to rely on a stance.

[Rino90]

Honestly, stances make a lot of sense for some classes - but not all.

Guardian doesn't feel like a class that needs to rely on a stance.

Let's do a little comparison and take a look at the captain's skills affected by the solo stance. Let's pay attention to the relevance of their application before the changes.

1. "Words of Courage". A skill that is not very relevant for the captain's red line both in solo and in a group, but still, even a small heal is useful if it is used on a party member or herald.
2. "Inspire (Blade-brother)". The skill was regularly used in the rotation.
3. "To Arms (Blade-brother)". Due to the trait of the red line, this skill, which duplicated positive effects on the captain, was also constantly used.
4. "Escape from Darkness". An extra combat resurrection is always useful in a group, even for a damage dealer. It's useless in solo play.

We see that all the changed skills of the captain had at least a small possibility and sense for their use by the red captain. But the developers still introduced a stance that further specialized these skills for dealing damage.

Now let's take a look at the aggro skills of the guard. They are also default skills and we don't unlock them in tank lines. At the same time, unlike healing skills, buffs and debuffs (regardless of their effects), the use of which makes at least theoretical sense regardless of the role played by the class, aggro skills are clearly specialized and are used only when tanking. When changing roles from a tank, we simply lose a number of our skills. But for some reason, the guardian turns out to be an inappropriate class for introducing stances that correct this problem. In addition, instead of making all the default skills of the guardian relevant in all lines, the developers, when planning changes, add new effects to skills that do not need them at all ("To The King"). At the moment, the rotation of the guardian suffers from a lack of at least one more actual damage skill with a 10 second CD, boosting skills, raid utility. In the meantime, guard players are reading on the forums how a weird timing-dependent effect will be added to the existing spamming skill, seeing three icons on the panel that will never be clicked in the red line. To me, this is a missed potential.

[zipfile]

Is anything going to be done about Guardian's getting next to nothing from Might as their main stat?
They have the worst stat distribution of all classes right now, gain near irrelevant stats.

At the moment, the rotation of the guardian suffers from a lack of at least one more actual damage skill with a 10 second CD, boosting skills, raid utility.

This is absolutely not true, Guardian's rotation in Red is really good already and we don't need any actual damage skills with a 10s CD.
As for the raid utility, I've commented on it before, but not every class needs to have stupid levels of Brawlers utility. Minor buffs, maybe, but Guardian already has that (Protection By The Sword, but IT IS STILL BUGGED AND DOESN'T REFRESH RELIABLY IN COMBAT)

[Thunderblast]

Honestly, stances make a lot of sense for some classes - but not all.

Guardian doesn't feel like a class that needs to rely on a stance.

While I hear what you're saying, I do think Guardians (red line especially) could benefit from an ability that gives reliable access to the parry chain without having aggro. It doesn't need to be a stance/toggle (although to me that seems like the cleanest way), it could also be a trait, possibly a capstone to replace Honorable Combat, which is honestly in contention for worst capstone ability in the game in my opinion. Such a trait/stance/toggle would do exactly what Stand Alone does on a Captain - alter some skills to make them make more sense in a different setting. Even just making Retaliation/Whirling Retaliation available without a parry would be all that I'm asking, but having some other skills (Engage and Fray mainly) make more sense DPS/solo would be great also.

The only other main thing with red line Guardian is the trait tree structure. It currently seems, from an abstract perspective, that the primary focus of red Guardian is Brutal Assault, since three traits (11 pts total when traited red) pertain to its useage/frequency. However, spending some time to play it reveals that Brutal Assault isn't really worth the massive trait expenditure (skill + Hem Wound + Tireless Blows).

There are two options to fix this: a) rework the red line Guardian to have some other way to spend those 11 trait points and devote a lot of effort/hours of development to it, or b) rebalance Brutal Assault to have higher base damage (not quite at the level of TTK, but it should be noticeably higher than Sting) or have some other worthwhile effect without buying Hem Wound as well. This also goes to solve what some others have been saying about maybe adding another heavy hitter.

As it stands, even with a fully maxed-out Brutal Assault, it's often not worth waiting the long animation or spending an animation cut when you could be doing something else, like throwing in a Sting and a Stagger and a Vexing Blow all in the same rough timeframe.


--
A last thing about red Guards: I noticed with the Warden rework you freshened up a lot of the icons. Keep it up! More parity with rounded corners is great, and I would love to see this come over to Guards. Overwhelm would be my top priority for an icon touch-up, followed by Smashing Stab, Redirect, and the blue-line defensive "cd" skills. Also please make the Brawler skill One for All no longer have the same icon as Pledge. Not only do Brawlers not use shields, but they also should get their own set of icons.

[zipfile]

While I hear what you're saying, I do think Guardians (red line especially) could benefit from an ability that gives reliable access to the parry chain without having aggro.

For years, I have been saying that Sting Crit should be a parry response opener, and yet they added an essence for it, on a trait line that's already starved for stats.
For years, I have been saying that Protection By The Sword should have a larger AOE cause 10m is not enough to facilitate good rotation flow.

But it seems like, for some reason, somewhere, Red Guardian has finesse issues and Blue is going to be considered to lose that trait...

It doesn't need to be a stance/toggle (although to me that seems like the cleanest way), it could also be a trait, possibly a capstone to replace Honorable Combat, which is honestly in contention for worst capstone ability in the game in my opinion.

Reactive Parry causing Sting Criticals to give a Parry Response is, by far, the easiest solution. Current essence could be still be used for Blue line builds anyway.

Such a trait/stance/toggle would do exactly what Stand Alone does on a Captain - alter some skills to make them make more sense in a different setting. Even just making Retaliation/Whirling Retaliation available without a parry would be all that I'm asking, but having some other skills (Engage and Fray mainly) make more sense DPS/solo would be great also.

Highly opposed to having stances back, we have trait trees for a reason.
Only reason for Captains to have Stand Alone is that since it's a fundamentally a class built on supporting others, it meant it was weak on its own, so giving it a solo stance options was the compromise.
Red Guardian doesn't have that issue or a need.

The only other main thing with red line Guardian is the trait tree structure. It currently seems, from an abstract perspective, that the primary focus of red Guardian is Brutal Assault, since three traits (11 pts total when traited red) pertain to its useage/frequency. However, spending some time to play it reveals that Brutal Assault isn't really worth the massive trait expenditure (skill + Hem Wound + Tireless Blows).

I have raved on this in the past as well, Guardian takes way too many points to max out things in the line for only a chance for something happening.

Tireless Blows is a chance to reset.
Haemorrhage is a chance to bleed.
Blind Rage is a chance to buff.

All costing 5 points to actually be useful. It's insane.
All the while, at the same time, having a plethora of outright horribly designed traits:

• Thrill of Battle
• Skilled Deflection
• Invourating Parry
• Honourable Combat
  
  • 15 trait points...for this...is a joke. Not to mention that other lines also have similar issues

There are two options to fix this: a) rework the red line Guardian to have some other way to spend those 11 trait points and devote a lot of effort/hours of development to it, or b) rebalance Brutal Assault to have higher base damage (not quite at the level of TTK, but it should be noticeably higher than Sting) or have some other worthwhile effect without buying Hem Wound as well. This also goes to solve what some others have been saying about maybe adding another heavy hitter.

I genuinely don't understand this need for another "heavy hitter", Guardian has enough skills, just need better damage and accessing them.

As it stands, even with a fully maxed-out Brutal Assault, it's often not worth waiting the long animation or spending an animation cut when you could be doing something else, like throwing in a Sting and a Stagger and a Vexing Blow all in the same rough timeframe.

This is outright false as Haemorraging Wound is you strongest Bleed and also most accessible.

--
A last thing about red Guards: I noticed with the Warden rework you freshened up a lot of the icons. Keep it up! More parity with rounded corners is great, and I would love to see this come over to Guards. Overwhelm would be my top priority for an icon touch-up, followed by Smashing Stab, Redirect, and the blue-line defensive "cd" skills. Also please make the Brawler skill One for All no longer have the same icon as Pledge. Not only do Brawlers not use shields, but they also should get their own set of icons.

Brutal Charge Knockdown effect was edited to feature a red background on the icon recently.
Tenderize was updated to use the icon that's the same as in the trait tree (there should be an added counter for this, however, as it has stacks, however the trait needs to be reworked as you are not supposed to be hit in as a DPS)
Bolster needs to be updated as well as adding a counter to it.
Terrible Wound needs another icon as it shares the one with Champions Rend.
Buffs that share the same icon of the red sword:

• Adaptability (both block and parry)
• Juggernaut
• Blind Rage
  
  • Should be changed to mirror their respective traits at least but this isn't really a priority IMO, there's gameplay issues first.

[Rino90]

This is absolutely not true, Guardian's rotation in Red is really good already and we don't need any actual damage skills with a 10s CD.

I thought so too while using "Whirling Retaliation" with a break after guaranteed parry responses, and "Retaliation" after random ones. Now I've thrown out everything superfluous and began to use only "Retaliation", thereby speeding up the use of the main damage skills as much as possible. In addition to the increase in dps, there was a small pause in the rotation for about the duration of the "Stagger" animation. You can look at the screenshot, I don't see what skill can be pushed in front of "Sting" and "Stagger" so as not to delay the further use of the interrupted "To The King" and "Brutal Assault". I don't pretend to be a perfect rotation, but if you're interested, we can compare the APS and the number of skills used in private messages. Besides, I don't see anything wrong with adding other new skills (more precisely, changing the aggro skills in the red branch). We have a not-too-damaging "Stagger" in our rotation that can always be skipped for some hypothetical 30 second skill replacing "Engage", as it's happening now with "Hammer Down". This will have minimal effect on rotation speed.

As for the raid utility, I've commented on it before, but not every class needs to have stupid levels of Brawlers utility. Minor buffs, maybe, but Guardian already has that (Protection By The Sword, but IT IS STILL BUGGED AND DOESN'T REFRESH RELIABLY IN COMBAT)

First, where did I say that the utility should be at the brawler level? Secondly, do you really think that the +3% melee damage from "Protection by the Sword" is enough utility (even though the developers will increase the radius and make the buff a permanent aura)? As far as I understand, the reason for reworking all classes in the game is to update all branches available to classes, including damage ones. Ideally, this means reducing the difference in damage between different classes and moving away from lineups with a bunch of the same top damage dealers and a couple of classes with better group bursts. There are an average of 6 damage dealers in a raid, we have 11 classes in the game, and not all of them are melee. Not too good prospects for 3% melee damage. If it doesn’t work out to balance the classes and we again encounter a tough meta, then with such utility it will be possible to get into the raid only with a significantly higher dps than other damage dealers. Therefore, I believe that the addition of some constantly maintained not too strong debuffs on armor, mitigation or incoming damage is quite relevant. Well, +3% of any damage from "Protection by the Sword".

[HolyDuckTape]

BLUE LINE

Blue line may not need much change, but it does still need some attention.
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• Relentless assault finesse should NOT be replaced with parry. This is a bad suggestion. Also, it should give sting crits a parry response. The fact that this was put on an essence instead was an absolute joke and slap to the guards who've been yelling about this for the past few years.
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• Break ranks should be a separate skill, we have been locked out of using one of our aoe threat builders because doing so pops off an important buff you need to time and it cashes out all your mits. Bad design. These 2 need to be separated.
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• Disorientation is the worst trait in lotro history. A CHANCE to remove 5% BPE. You can change this out to become literally anything. A vitality trait, inc dmg debuff, bpe, resistance, whatever you can imagine, literally anything. Just change it. This trait should not remain unchanged, it is an abomination.
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• Shieldwall could use a little dmg reduction like beornings get. The person not being able to BPE is already a trade-off well enough, no need to take literally 100% of the full load on top of it. It's a little too much.

RED LINE

Ohboy, this line needs to either 1. get buffed to become one of the best damage dealer or 2. get buffed in the utility departement. 3. A mix of both! Not doing any one of these will result in the class never having a competetive dps line. Currently its damage is trash and utility non-existant; compared to other dps classes. Other dps classes will ALWAYS be chosen over a red guard no matter what unless 1 of these 3 get applied. There is no need for any ''shy'' fixes, it'll do nothing for us in the end. Red guard needs big fixes to become competetive.
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• Overall the trait costs need to be reduced drastically, 5 points each for ''to the king'' + ''haemorrage'' + ''tireless blows'' just to increase the chance of something happening, 6 points for a sprint... ridiculous.
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• Don't tie honourable combat to to the king. Honourable combat should stay a separate skill. I like the idea so far but it's still too weak for my liking. Add a self-dmg buff to it and i'll like it.
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• We don't want longer bleed durations. We already got 100% uptime easily.... spamming bleed skills is literally the rotation as its 50% of the skills. Instead, making bleeds stackable or giving us initial bleed dmg would be a great buff.
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• Increase bleed dmg
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• Prey on the weak is ironically incredibly weak. Increase its damage DRAMATICALLY.
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• Reactive parry needs to be changed, parry dmg is a joke, we aren't supposed to be hit + i bet it's damage is horrifyingly bad aswell (no one cares to check this terrible trait)
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• Guards lack offensive stats, add critical rating to might. This will help ALL guardian lines in fact.
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• Guardian's ward should give a dmg buff in redline
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• Traits need to be more impactful in general, thrill of battle, invigorating parry, deeper wound bleed dmg, haemmorrage, valorous strength, heavy blows, bleed them dry etc. etc. basically nearly all traits need some buffing in the amount of buff they give you.
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• Remove the stun from hammer down and give it something that increases dps on a target, think about a debuff with +5% incoming crit or dev chance for 10s for example. The cd should be reduced to 20s
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• Protection by the Sword needs to become an aura, have a MUCH bigger range (at the minimum a 30m range) and it should buff all dmg types for 5-10%. Not 3%. It's mastery based so i would personally even say 20% but yeet.
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• Force opening should always give an inc dmg debuff in any line. Plain inc dmg, -mits or inc crit dmg can all fill this spot.
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• Warriors heart heal should become a dmg buff. I've always thought about guardians being the ''devastating hit'' dpsers instead of using crit....err for roleplaying purposes. Maybe add some devastating hit chance on top of the dmg buff? Just
  a wild n random idea
  -
• Give red guards a base +5% devastate chance or the usual 5% crit chance other classes get which we don't get. (dev hits should proc crit responses and crit dmg should boost dev dmg.....memories)
  -
• Boost dmg all the way up untill red guards are competetive. This may require some massive boosts.

YELLOW LINE

I honestly don't know how to even start talking about yellow line, it's just a total mess. I'm speechless but i'll try to quickly scan over it. This line will need a full rework to truly work again. Either that or changing it into a passive line will surely work. But i'm more a fan of the more actually working trait lines, the better imo. I don't like the fact that the devs have lately just been deleting lines to save on having to work to fix a line... Currently it's a line meant to tank, debuff and dps all at the same time. It's just weird. I love using it and i always do if i don't have to use blue, but it's too big of a topic to just talk about in one post, i wouldn't even know where to start. It's also an incredibly niche-line.
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The needed changes are way too much to list. So I'll just give a summary of the most important points instead:

• Give it a well established main role, >AoE tank sounds dumb, blue line is supposed to AoE tank and it can perfectly do this so giving this as a gimmick to yellow guards is useless.
  -
• Making all melee attacks AoE sounds incredibly cool however, i like it. Perhaps it can even be some AoE dps line alternative for guards then altough a bit suicidal but fun to try. All AoE melees will definitely fit with the take to heart heal. It's always a bruh moment to hit a ST skill heal. It will also increase your radiating and such. I would like to see this implemented it just sounds intriguing
  -
• Tenderize giving crit upon parry is bad for dps (red) guards. You're not supposed to be hit. Perhaps give crit passively or count protection by the sword parries for this?
  -
• Insult to injury is useless. Completely replace it
  -
• Singular focus debuff is way too weak in every way possible. It needs to be spreadable and refreshable. Also increase it's rating/turn it into a % based skill. It's pathetic.
  -
• Cataclysmic shout is horrible, the dmg is too low and the cd is way too long. Decrease the cd, decrease the cd with war-chant, increase the dmg, add a new debuff to it or double all debuffs it hits for a short time etc.
  -
• Every tier of strong bursts should give +4% aoe dmg instead of the big 10% jump at rank 6. Make it increase flash of light damage too.
  -
• Radiate targets needs to be increased, when it was reduced by 1 it was a huge insult to injury. There's ofcourse a workaround for this but we shouldn't have to work around bad game design. If
  this tank is meant to AoE debuff then give it the pure ability to do so. Increasing it by 1 would just push it back to its baseline, Increase the targets by even more i would say.
  -
• REWORK: Increase flash of light damage, there was one point in the game i think during end-120cap or start 130-cap where FoL was doing really good damage. It was actually really noticeable while tanking. You could actually dps-tank. Finally, like the trait line was meant to do but then it got nerfed into oblivion and today we STILL have weaker FoL damage than back during end120/start130. We used to do 20k FoL on lv120, and it ticked like 5 or so times per mob per aoe skill. Nowadays it only ticks once and only does 7-11k or so. It's incredibly pathetic. Give us back the tick for every mob hit instead of ticking only once everytime you use a skill no matter how many mobs you hit AND increase the damage DRAMATICALLY. Or if you're not gonna give us back the 5 ticks+ per aoe skill then you should at the very least x5 the dmg of FoL after it has been increased to a proper amount. It's so garbage currently. It's truly ruined. And hey it'll also increase the AoE aggro for the ''AoE tank''. If you ever want a ''dps-tank'' ''AoE tank'' FoL would be the perfect solution this way it cannot be abused by full-dps guards as it does not scale based on stats. Buff FoL damage dramatically again, it was actually very well balanced and you could notice its impact, it made yellow tank actually worth it over blue in easier-to-survive content.
  -
• The debuffs are all weak. Especially the -dmg% debuffs which were meant to offset the loss in mits compared to blue. Those debuffs are mastery based so they basically reduce dmg by literally nothing at all. Only -run speed is good, or better said; overpowered and indeed abusable in very niche situations.
  -
• Protection is very meh, -inc dmg would be much better than BPE. Especially so little BPE.

It ain't much but my brain is fried after crying for years long for guard buffs and barely receiving anything im heading back to my rock brother, there's plenty of great threads about buffing up guards from a year or 2, 3 or so ago. Yep.. they are still all viable to this day.

[zipfile]

You can look at the screenshot, I don't see what skill can be pushed in front of "Sting" and "Stagger" so as not to delay the further use of the interrupted "To The King" and "Brutal Assault".

War-chant.

First, where did I say that the utility should be at the brawler level? Secondly, do you really think that the +3% melee damage from "Protection by the Sword" is enough utility (even though the developers will increase the radius and make the buff a permanent aura)?

No, it isn't enough, but it would be a really good start.
Also, this wasn't a jab at the Guardian getting utility as much Brawler having far too much of it. The class feels cluttered with "Press Button to Win" buffs that have no rotational purpose, it's just fire and forget deals. Funnily enough, this screams of the whole debacle Guardians had two-three years ago when they were completely replaced by Captains in higher tier raiding cause Guardian offered nothing to the group, so the designers fearing the Brawler might not offer much decided to throw in literally everything they could think of.

As far as I understand, the reason for reworking all classes in the game is to update all branches available to classes, including damage ones. Ideally, this means reducing the difference in damage between different classes and moving away from lineups with a bunch of the same top damage dealers and a couple of classes with better group bursts.

This is entirely irrelevant as the content will first and foremost dictate classes.
Champions will shine in AOE fights with cluttered enemies, but then we had Hiddenhoard, an extremely unfriendly melee raid cause nobody in the design department remembered that melee DPS classes existed.
(LMs and RKs were severely undertuned for the time, but I will mention them here now cause there could be some potential for RKs...maybe...IDK, mobs just die too quick with 3 Hunters)

There are an average of 6 damage dealers in a raid, we have 11 classes in the game, and not all of them are melee. Not too good prospects for 3% melee damage.

That's because, originally, the skill wasn't meant to buff melee damage at all. It was physical mastery and parry. Something happened some time in development and we ended up with a random melee damage modifier and lost the Parry aspect.
As for not all of them being Melee, we have Brawler, Champion, Burglar, Warden, Captain and Beorning alongside Guardians. These are all melee DPS. They vastly outnumber the ranged DPS classes. So...uhm....what are you trying to equate here?
I'll just add again that content dictates the roster much more than just how each class performs.

If it doesn’t work out to balance the classes and we again encounter a tough meta, then with such utility it will be possible to get into the raid only with a significantly higher dps than other damage dealers. Therefore, I believe that the addition of some constantly maintained not too strong debuffs on armor, mitigation or incoming damage is quite relevant. Well, +3% of any damage from "Protection by the Sword".

Given the recent changes to how mastery buffs work, 3% isn't something that's gonna cause a Guardian to be taken or not, true. However, for a buff that's supposed to be permanently active, it's more than a good contribution for a DPS-focused role.
My previous suggestions of giving Honourable Combat bleed cashout for incoming damage debuff (and self damage buff) would again be good enough for some rosters to bring in a Guardian into the fold.
(This entire idea of such a working HC is also meant to work well with Orions idea of dropping Thrust out of Parry Chain, as you could get Bleeds rapidly back after removing them too. So, yes, while suffering a momentary DPS loss, you'd considerably contribute to the overall group damage and with the buffing of your damage afterwards, you'd end up in a large net positive).

I don't pretend to be a perfect rotation, but if you're interested, we can compare the APS and the number of skills used in private messages.

It's better that such information be public rather than being shown in DMs:

• There is a criminal lack of knowledge that's readily available in the game already
• I believe it can be very beneficial for Orion to see what numbers we are currently working with on parses and timers.
• It could be used as a reference for some players that wanted to play this line but as nothing is really explained about it, this could be a decent start (something I began doing way back in 2016 on these very forums)

Couple of notes:

• I am extremely rusty, I haven't been parsing that much recently so my skill count is low on some, but higher on others.
• Horrible lag ruined that first minute as there were multiple times where I'd just stand still and waste a chain
• Didn't wish to repeat the parse cause parsing on a Guardian is about as much fun as pouring lemon juice into salted wounds.

But from this parse, this is what I can say:

• Guardian maintains very good flow in Red. Dropping Thrust out of the Parry Chain could be beneficial for Bleed maintenance, but its damage should be monitored closely when doing so.
• Funny thing about Reactive Parry I remembered that it was a remnant of Shadows of Angmar launch, where there existed traits that dealt damage once you blocked or parried attacks. They were as garbage and useless then as they are now. So, please...remove this, I'd rather have a clown emoji as an icon for Reactive Parry with an empty tooltip than whatever this horror is. Ideas were proposed before, but I'll abbreviate and say that there needs to be a complete redesign of this trait
• Adjustment to Bleed durations is necessary:
  
  • Deep Wound lasting 20 seconds doesn't matter at all since you're cycling Overwhelm as much as possible, wasting a good portion of the bleed. Lower the base duration considerably and increase its damage considerably as well.
  • Slashing Wound lasting 12 seconds wasted due to Sweeping Cut's cooldown of 9. Lower the base duration to 8 seconds, with Bleed Them Dry increasing it by 2 seconds/1 tick, thus Bleed matching the cooldown.
  • Terrible Wound lasting 16 seconds is far too long due to Overwhelm cycling. Lower the duration and increase the damage slightly so it's higher than Haemmorhaging Wound.
    
    • It has also been bugged since the Legendary Item changes, as the Bleed damage isn't benefiting from Overwhelm Damage and Critical Chance tracery, unlike Sweeping Cut tracery (Slashing Wound) and Brutal Assault tracery (Haemorrhaging Wound). This results in Haemorrhaging Wound contributing significantly higher than Terrible Wound.
    • Adjust the icon for Terrible Wound for tracking purposes, since it shares one with Rend from Champions Bleed.
• Prey On The Weak is an absolute joke, please rework the trait. While in AOE fights it can be an alright contributor, Red Guardian flows and play much better in single target situations.
  
  • Back in the day during the reworks of 22.2, I suggest that Prey On The Weak could alter every Bleed in some way rather than just one, with Vastin saying that it could cause a lot of problems with various interactions. Perhaps it's possible this could be revisited at some point in the future, making Prey On The Weak something like a melee version of RKs Seething Truth trait.
  • Or just bring back old stacking Haemorrhage trait from 60-85 level caps
• Hammer Down should get its cooldown reduced and damage increased.
  
  • Animation also doesn't match the skill effect, with the animation clearly being depicted as having two attacks. Reworking the skill to have the current damage being the first hit with a follow hit being considerably stronger would make the skill an excellent addition without too much reimagining.
• Consider increasing War-chant's damage a bit as it would help all lines.
• Edit: Make Force Opening useful in some capacity

[Thunderblast]

Reactive Parry causing Sting Criticals to give a Parry Response is, by far, the easiest solution. Current essence could be still be used for Blue line builds anyway.

I hear you, but imo it would be better to have Reactive Parry make all criticals give a parry response. This would be similar to blue-line Burglars, where evades grant a crit response, except its crits instead of evades and parries instead of crits. While it probably wouldn't make much of a gameplay difference, since everyone's spamming Sting anyway, it would make it more likely for a red Guardian to get parries passively while DPS-ing without using any particular skill.

Highly opposed to having stances back, we have trait trees for a reason.
Only reason for Captains to have Stand Alone is that since it's a fundamentally a class built on supporting others, it meant it was weak on its own, so giving it a solo stance options was the compromise.
Red Guardian doesn't have that issue or a need.

I'm not quite with you on that one. Guards are in exactly the same boat since many of our skills are literally useless if we're solo or DPS. While it's plausible that a solo Guard might use Engage solo for the runspeed debuff, it is inconcievable that a solo Guard would use Challenge or Fray solo (unless they were feelin' it and wanted to hear their Dwarf yell "Baruk Khazad" at a time when War Chant and ITP are on cd). Same goes for a DPS guard in a group -- except to an even greater extreme, not only would taunting be useless, it would actively hurt the group and require the MT to taunt right back.

So that makes three skill that are useless for red line, whereas the pre-U35 Cappy BB's Call and Inspire at least made some sense bc of the self buff that came too. While the lore/fantasy of a Captain seems to especially stress the issue of being weaker solo, the mechanics are very similar and I think red Guards should get a stance or a trait or something that makes some abilities make more sense when not actively tanking.

I have raved on this in the past as well, Guardian takes way too many points to max out things in the line for only a chance for something happening.

Tireless Blows is a chance to reset.
Haemorrhage is a chance to bleed.
Blind Rage is a chance to buff.

Entirely in agreement here. Even if the devs wanted to do it this way, they could at least lower the sheer number of trait points required to buy this garbage. This stuff is airport-food levels of expensive. The traits could at least have some other feature, like Tireless Blows could also have a reset chance for Stamp so that you could at least cut the animation of Brutal Assault at the same time, and Haemmorrhage could also have an accross-the-board bleed damage buff. These traits are simply way too expensive for what they give compared to other classes. Look at blue champ avoidance trait, for example: +1% parry chance per rank AND some Vitality, whereas we just get +1% parry chance on a roughly equivalent trait.

[zipfile]

I'm not quite with you on that one. Guards are in exactly the same boat since many of our skills are literally useless if we're solo or DPS.

They're not because Stand Along sacrifices the group benefits of affected skills for solo-buffs/attacks/effects, whereas there's no downside to Guardians getting another stance.

I'll say it again, Guardian has enough skills in a rotation, when it works its very fluid, engaging and fun to play.

We do not need more skills to use, at most we need to make some other skills more relevant to use:

• Force Opening
• Stagger
• War-chant (fix the bug where trait-tree selection skills do not benefit from Demoralizing Anthem [Overwhelm and Shield-taunt)]
• Vexing Blow (give back its increased threat for Blue and for Red make it do more damage)

[Hephburz-2]

Not at all. These are early thoughts and if it proves out that the yellow should become more utility than an actual line- then that is what will happen.

FWIW

I like the initial suggestions you've made surrounding yellow line, but it needs to go further to have its own identity, the concept of "AoE/ST tanks" shouldn't really be a thing unless you plan a mass revision of all tanking specs to split them into boss tanks and add tanks, which would also require a complete revision of a lot of the content too. This also only serves a purpose in raids as well and is a terrible mindset for 3/6man content which require tanks that have the ability to do both, and do both well.

As much as I hate to draw comparisons from another game, these changes to Yellow Guard awfully mimic the current WoW Tank Paladin;

- The change to light damage (Holy Damage Paladin)
- Take to Heart being ground targetted that applies buffs/debuffs to yourself and enemies within (Consecration)
- AoE on all skills (Tank Paladin is basically a master of AoE).

That being said, I'm fully in support of this direction, whilst it may seem like copying or rather inspiration being drawn from another game, I think it would be very interesting, but like I said, you need to go further. Some of the biggest problems with Yellow is the simple fact, blue is by default better due to fortification, you need to offset that somehow if you want people to actually play Yellow. The debuffs and/or buffs applied by Take to Heart need to be worth a dam, not overpowered, but meaningful. Yellow Guardian damage should be 'strong' similar to the pre-FoL/Radiate changes. It needs more group utility, either by more meaningful enemy debuffs, or some other means.

If this can be achieved, then, sure, Yellow Guardian might be able to serve as an alternative to Blue Guardian, which, IS OK - but if not, I would agree with others that it should be made passive.

[Rino90]

It's better that such information be public rather than being shown in DMs

A little later I will write a detailed answer, but for now I will throw off a screenshot of my parser. I'm very interested in where you get such huge numbers of average damage of all skills? Overestimated crit or the presence of a class essence for 10% damage and -3% mitigations?

[zipfile]

A little later I will write a detailed answer, but for now I will throw off a screenshot of my parser. I'm very interested in where you get such huge numbers of average damage of all skills? Overestimated crit or the presence of a class essence for 10% damage and -3% mitigations?

Yes, I use the essence. Build screenshots are linked so I don't clutter the post are here:

• Stats
• Gear

The 10% attack duration is nice for a higher hit counter, but the recent changes to mastery and Guardian's getting away without adjustments has made the essence far better and worthwhile in my opinion.
This would explain the difference between skill hit counts, as Guardians powerful attacks are quite slow and you definitely feel the 7 set difference during rotations.
But to me, essence wins out overall as the -3% mitigation debuff with the 10% damage gives a very large bonus to damage on top of everything else.

[Rino90]

The 10% attack duration is nice for a higher hit counter, but the recent changes to mastery and Guardian's getting away without adjustments has made the essence far better and worthwhile in my opinion.
This would explain the difference between skill hit counts, as Guardians powerful attacks are quite slow and you definitely feel the 7 set difference during rotations.
But to me, essence wins out overall as the -3% mitigation debuff with the 10% damage gives a very large bonus to damage on top of everything else.

I haven't traded essence yet due to priority for my other characters. On the test, as far as I remember, the difference in APS with the essence was not very big. Apparently with the essence and the same rotation it will be possible to reach 520k-530k