guardian bleeds u19.3 first impressions

[Zonflux]

Warden HoT's were nerfed into the ground for redline, it's the blue line that currently needs a bit of DPS reduction.

I maintain the stance that damage output should never reach the point where guard is even mildly competitive DPS for instances, it is the tank class, it has 2 trait lines that tank very well. If third traitlines are supposed to be competitive in groups then guardian is one of the last classes requiring buffs to make that possible.

As Red Warden (currently level 91);
1. My morale is really low, battle memory and use 2 Resolutions for burst healing.
2. As I'm rounding up monsters tap every mob with EoB.
3. Need more morale from tabs, through in a Fierce Resolve.
4. Still need more morale, throw in a Restoration and Conviction.
When combined with Defiant Challenge with only 10s downtime, god mode.
5. Still taking too much damage? Throw in some avoidance gambits.

There's no need for me to drop into Blue when soloing instances at the moment because of Defiant Challenge, access to all gambit heals and taps, and parry heals.

Please, please keep talking as you are doing yourself no favours.

[Willj119]

As Red Warden (currently level 91);
1. My morale is really low, battle memory and use 2 Resolutions for burst healing.
2. As I'm rounding up monsters tap every mob with EoB.
3. Need more morale from tabs, through in a Fierce Resolve.
4. Still need more morale, throw in a Restoration and Conviction.
When combined with Defiant Challenge with only 10s downtime, god mode.
5. Still taking too much damage? Throw in some avoidance gambits.

There's no need for me to drop into Blue when soloing instances at the moment because of Defiant Challenge, access to all gambit heals and taps, and parry heals.

Please, please keep talking as you are doing yourself no favours.

In my personal opinion, class balance (which is the primary concern of this thread in relation to the guardian) concerns classes played at the cap level. In the current state of the game, all questing / landscape content can easily be completed by any class, meaning balance is unimportant for this level. I therefore do not think this input about the strength of wardens and their heals is particularly valuable.

This is not to say that I don't believe the red warden has access to too much survivability given the DPS it can output, however!

[Joedangod]

Worth noting that warden DoTs were nerfed massively with u18 so that for level 92+ they scale poorly in comparison to before, when you reach cap you will find that your DPS output does not increase at the rate it did whilst leveling and a side effect that redline warden is not anywhere near the level of RK/Hunter.

The heal nerf basically ensured that wardens cannot solo properly scaled T2 instances in redline, the lousy mobs of Rohan are not quite at that level. An equivalent blue line damage nerf would help resolve the other side of that making these instances once again almost impossible to solo (although warden would likely need some work to help them compensate threat wise, nothing major).

[Grimlir83]

(sorry for my bad english)
I had written a message about the guardian in PVMP shortly before the update 19.3
Whas has been done on the guardian with the update 19.3 is unfair, guardian in red line is now weaker (the patch notes sais the contrary). With no effort from SSG after three nerfs (18, 19.2, 19.3), for the update 20 for example, it would be very problematic.

[Joedangod]

They are about on the same level now as before due to usage of agility instead of mastery on the gear and ili rise.

Yeah, but at the same time the other classes got a large bump with U18+ that wardens hardly benefited from. The result is that wardens became quite a bit weaker in comparison to other classes at 105 than they were at 100. Hence why wardens are no longer the classes doing the crazy parses, pretty much just hunters/RK's now.

[Lifthil]

After watching Zonflux's U19.3 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP3LmqAocWs), I've come up with a theory as to why Prey on the Weak heals are procing so rarely. When Zon was fighting in Helegrod Spider Wing (towards the end of the video), he was only getting PotW heals when he used Sweeping Cut and not from Vexing Blow, Whirling Retaliation, War-chant, or Guardian's Ward. The difference is that SC tiers up bleeds automatically, but VB/WR/WC/GW only tier up bleeds when they crit (Keen Blade base trait + Heavy Blows set bonus). This makes perfect sense that Heavy Blows would be causing problems, since that was specifically one of the changes they listed in the U19.3 notes. In other words, they were fiddling with Heavy Blows to fix the "bleed falling off on resist" bug, but ended up introducing this bug. It's possible something else is also up (Zon mentioned Insult to Injury and Radiate), but at present I don't see as much evidence for other causes.

Hopefully a SSG dev reads this thread and is able to fix the bugs plaguing the Guardian...and then yes, please give us a preview on BR so we can test things before they go live! Without this critical testing, more players will be driven away from the class and potentially the game itself.

[Zonflux]

After watching Zonflux's U19.3 video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP3LmqAocWs), I've come up with a theory as to why Prey on the Weak heals are procing so rarely. When Zon was fighting in Helegrod Spider Wing (towards the end of the video), he was only getting PotW heals when he used Sweeping Cut and not from Vexing Blow, Whirling Retaliation, War-chant, or Guardian's Ward. The difference is that SC tiers up bleeds automatically, but VB/WR/WC/GW only tier up bleeds when they crit (Keen Blade base trait + Heavy Blows set bonus). This makes perfect sense that Heavy Blows would be causing problems, since that was specifically one of the changes they listed in the U19.3 notes. In other words, they were fiddling with Heavy Blows to fix the "bleed falling off on resist" bug, but ended up introducing this bug. It's possible something else is also up (Zon mentioned Insult to Injury and Radiate), but at present I don't see as much evidence for other causes.

Hopefully a SSG dev reads this thread and is able to fix the bugs plaguing the Guardian...and then yes, please give us a preview on BR so we can test things before they go live! Without this critical testing, more players will be driven away from the class and potentially the game itself.

I was just brainstorming ideas. I liked your post so much that I'm forwarding it to the devs.

[siipperi]

Yeah, but at the same time the other classes got a large bump with U18+ that wardens hardly benefited from. The result is that wardens became quite a bit weaker in comparison to other classes at 105 than they were at 100. Hence why wardens are no longer the classes doing the crazy parses, pretty much just hunters/RK's now.

You mean they are just very OP at this moment in red and not god like?

I was just brainstorming ideas. I liked your post so much that I'm forwarding it to the devs.

Thing to remember here is that spamming devs with random messages is not very productive. Best is to report bugs in game with /bug and fill the form and QA will handle the rest.

[Marxlne]

Best is to report bugs in game with /bug and fill the form and QA will handle the rest.

Recent guardian "fixes" have convinced me that there is no QA at SSG right now and all bug reports go straight to /dev/null (pun intended)

[Macdui]

Recent guardian "fixes" have convinced me that there is no QA at SSG right now and all bug reports go straight to /dev/null (pun intended)

from notes:
•Guardian bleeds for higher tiers can crit.
•Guardian's Heavy Strike bleed stacks will no longer fall off enemies when the applied bleed is resisted, and will instead simply not increase. The stack will instead fall off on timeout or removal.

If this is presented to QA as being the only changes then QA will only be required to check that these two are working as specified. They wouldn't be required to make any other check and sign off the changes ready for LIVE.

Others here are more adept at checking that both items are indeed working, I suspect they are.

But ofc as we all know whenever they try to modify the Guard code it never quite works out. My guess is they aren't drilling down to the code that needs changing and making changes elsewhere that inevitably has additional knock-on effects. Each time they go into the code it just gets messier and messier. Threat got so complex (miss-understood) by HD, they threw it out.

There has to be some kind of change in strategy at SSG. Our last EP was of the opinion that we moaned about the game because of our own rl issues rather than our gaming experiences (it's on YouTube). It's my opinion she was the worst EP for the players since KP. I moan when they screw up. I moan more if they screw up a good rl day.

We need a change in priorities, we always get the "it's on the radar" and "when we can fit it in" line. Do they not know they drive people away when their changes effect our gameplay so drastically. I've just had the longest period away from the game in the nearly 10 years of playing, 5 months, as a result of the last Guard "fix". Seeing the patch notes had me hoping I would be playing the Guardian again.

What is so annoying is we have no acknowledgement of any problem days later. While a missing horse has priority over everything!

We had the same last time, until +EdgeCase came on to "discuss" and everyone fawned over him thinking we were getting somewhere at last. Well that didn't last.

But it's not just Guards. Everyone will have their favourite class and build and if you side-line or significantly modify that spec you only piss off that player.

It has to be the most important priority SSG have to make class changes with the best of care and fully test and show on Bullroarer before release. How dumb do you have to be to not see this?

Mac

[Joedangod]

I think that some of their problems trying to balance red guardian stem from the fact that they don't seem to have designed it as an aoe dps traitline at all. Only 1 trait in the entire tree involves AoE, the dev diary for guardian changes during helms deep even states that yellow was meant to be the AoE line "The Fighter of Shadow... provided a bit more access to AoE attacks, an area where the other two lines are a bit weak."*. Most of the skills in redline seem to be buffing melee damage in some form, not bleed damage and every skill granted by the red traitline is single target.

I assume that radiate bleed spreads was just a massive accident and the devs at the time ended up rolling with it instead of blocking the spread and focusing on making guards more ST oriented in redline.

[Macdui]

I think that some of their problems trying to balance red guardian stem from the fact that they don't seem to have designed it as an aoe dps traitline at all. Only 1 trait in the entire tree involves AoE, the dev diary for guardian changes during helms deep even states that yellow was meant to be the AoE line "The Fighter of Shadow... provided a bit more access to AoE attacks, an area where the other two lines are a bit weak."*. Most of the skills in redline seem to be buffing melee damage in some form, not bleed damage and every skill granted by the red traitline is single target.

I assume that radiate bleed spreads was just a massive accident and the devs at the time ended up rolling with it instead of blocking the spread and focusing on making guards more ST oriented in redline.

All those dev diaries were published a good while before the desperate scramble during beta to appease the player testers and get a playable class. A lot of stuff got implemented in the panic and there was no thought to any balance.

Before Gondor I wandered the world in a blue build, I'd never bothered trying to do damage, I had other classes for that. Then the forums talked of this awesome Red/Yellow Bleeder build so eventually had a look. My immediate thought was someone seriously screwed up here, this was no Guardian and it would be fixed in a hotfix in no time. Problem is you get used to it, you can't take it away after so long. I used to play landscape content on horseback, on a war-band I'd mindlessly circle around till the horse ran out of power then dismount and remount to continue the fight.

The bleed tiering up and radiating so quickly should have been noticed and addressed at the time not years later. But we always asked if they actually played the game and they always said yes they did!

[Joedangod]

All those dev diaries were published a good while before the desperate scramble during beta to appease the player testers and get a playable class. A lot of stuff got implemented in the panic and there was no thought to any balance.

Before Gondor I wandered the world in a blue build, I'd never bothered trying to do damage, I had other classes for that. Then the forums talked of this awesome Red/Yellow Bleeder build so eventually had a look. My immediate thought was someone seriously screwed up here, this was no Guardian and it would be fixed in a hotfix in no time. Problem is you get used to it, you can't take it away after so long. I used to play landscape content on horseback, on a war-band I'd mindlessly circle around till the horse ran out of power then dismount and remount to continue the fight.

The bleed tiering up and radiating so quickly should have been noticed and addressed at the time not years later. But we always asked if they actually played the game and they always said yes they did!

The traitline isn't designed for such a mechanic though. Essentially what red guardians are asking for is impossible to give via bug fixes since the issues aren't technically bugs. Redline would need to be revamped to solve this issue, with them either resetting it to be the ST DPS they originally had planned or whether they instead just alter most of the ST traits in redline to be designed with the aoe mechanics in mind.

Either way, the current state of red guard has no meaningful bug fix.

[Joedangod]

Bleeds applying on crits seems to be from the traitline passive, heavy blows is simply supposed to make you go up 2 bleeds on crit (which doesn't happen).*

I then tried to see if heavy blows applied, it was only giving me 1 tier of bleeds on crit.**

I then decided to see what was wrong with Prey on the Weak, turns out the damage part at the top is working as intended but the heal aspect is not. It's not proccing on critical hit tiers.***

* Tested by placing no points in red and just hitting a friend in a spar, crits did tier up the bleeds.
** Tested by placing enough points in red to get the trait and just hitting the same friend in a spar, crits did give a single bleed tier.
*** Tested by placing all points into red and hitting a person who is now reconsidering our friendship, discovered only traited sweeping cut, thrust and brutal assault could proc PotW.

[Joolonu]

Just came here to check, if it was me or U19.3 made the guardian entirely unplayable in red line now. I guess it's not me then... *sigh

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

Just came here to check, if it was me or U19.3 made the guardian entirely unplayable in red line now. I guess it's not me then... *sigh

It's not unplayable, it's just... not fun at all. It's a complete and total slog due to the dps drop.

[Fermongu]

I read the new hotfix patch notes, but I'm unsure if it means guards are just like before u19.3, or bleed crit improved but not fully fixed?

[siipperi]

I read the new hotfix patch notes, but I'm unsire if it means guards are just like before u19.3, or bleed crit improved but no fully fixed?

I believe it's essentially rolling back to old update with heals and no ability to crit bleeds. I guess it's better solution for now until they do something revolutionary to broken bleed mechanism.

[mattspencer]

It sounds to me like the update that caused bleeds being resisted to no longer remove the bleed completely will still be there, so I will expect an increase to dps from 19.2, and probably an increase from 19.3. Healing should be back to what it was in 19.2. Overall, half a step in the right direction. Of course, we will see what it looks like when live.

[BotLike]

It sounds to me like the update that caused bleeds being resisted to no longer remove the bleed completely will still be there, so I will expect an increase to dps from 19.2, and probably an increase from 19.3. Healing should be back to what it was in 19.2. Overall, half a step in the right direction. Of course, we will see what it looks like when live.

Ow dear...
It really sounds like a rollback , i hope at least resist fix is still there...
There's no mention about this by Cordovan.

[Vastin]

It sounds to me like the update that caused bleeds being resisted to no longer remove the bleed completely will still be there, so I will expect an increase to dps from 19.2, and probably an increase from 19.3. Healing should be back to what it was in 19.2. Overall, half a step in the right direction. Of course, we will see what it looks like when live.

Yes. The prior fix to the guardian bleeds was most certainly borked, and a new fix is already in testing to roll out probably in the next release.

Longer term... Yes, design-wise the combination of Radiate and the Red line bleeds was apparently not anticipated and resulted in a rather OP Red-line build with a dabbling of yellow that ended up out-classing the yellow line in its own arena. I can't speak to the exact intent as I wasn't here for that, but even a glance at the tree arrangement suggests that it was a design error.

It is likely that in the future the red-line will see some significant tweaks to its game-play, shifting it back away from AoE/self-heal, and more towards a full out DPS/leveling line, while we try to get Yellow back into the primacy for AoE off-tanking. I don't have any details to offer on those as I'm currently working on other matters, but in terms of intent, expect the builds to move in those general directions.

But in the short term, we're mostly just trying to triage the red-line bugs to stop the bleeding. So to speak.

-Vastin

[DiogoVP]

Yes. The prior fix to the guardian bleeds was most certainly borked, and a new fix is already in testing to roll out probably in the next release.

Longer term... Yes, design-wise the combination of Radiate and the Red line bleeds was apparently not anticipated and resulted in a rather OP Red-line build with a dabbling of yellow that ended up out-classing the yellow line in its own arena. I can't speak to the exact intent as I wasn't here for that, but even a glance at the tree arrangement suggests that it was a design error.

It is likely that in the future the red-line will see some significant tweaks to its game-play, shifting it back away from AoE/self-heal, and more towards a full out DPS/leveling line, while we try to get Yellow back into the primacy for AoE off-tanking. I don't have any details to offer on those as I'm currently working on other matters, but in terms of intent, expect the builds to move in those general directions.

But in the short term, we're mostly just trying to triage the red-line bugs to stop the bleeding. So to speak.

-Vastin

New name on the forums! Please introduce yourself

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

New name on the forums! Please introduce yourself

He's not new, just coming back.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...39#post7689839

Hey folks. Figured this looked like a good place to pop in and announce myself.

Tis Vastin, developer of ages long past - back at work on the guts of LOTRO. This time I'll be puttering about in Systems as opposed to Content development, which was my prior haunt.

Just as a heads up, we are certainly looking at tweaking the essence system further as we move into Mordor, and have been actively discussing what shape that will take internally.

I suspect you'll see a more evenhanded contribution from items and essences going forwards. I can't outline exactly where that line will be as we're still debating the particular ourselves, and I'm perfectly happy to let you discover those particulars in game - but probably less overall slots than you see in the current generation of gear, while remaining a major aspect of gearing out your character fully.

To sum it up, we like the customization and the ability to hand out rewards more often that the essence system allows us, but the difficult logistics and lack of unique value and coolness of the actual gear drops has certainly been noted, and we'll be working to improve that, both in terms of the equipment designs and some of the underpinning systems.

I'm looking forwards to exploring Middle Earth with you all once again!

-Vastin

And, his previous account's profile from which you can see his older posts:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/member.php?204728-Vastin

[Joedangod]

Nice to see a systems dev in the class forums (although I would like to direct you to the Beorning side for a little bit). :P

But in the short term, we're mostly just trying to triage the red-line bugs to stop the bleeding. So to speak.

Think you need to tackle it from the yellow line side, the majority of Guardian bugs are there. Although admittedly I don't have any idea how you're gonna be able to balance red/yellow short term, I wish you luck.

[Fermongu]

Yes. The prior fix to the guardian bleeds was most certainly borked, and a new fix is already in testing to roll out probably in the next release.

Longer term... Yes, design-wise the combination of Radiate and the Red line bleeds was apparently not anticipated and resulted in a rather OP Red-line build with a dabbling of yellow that ended up out-classing the yellow line in its own arena. I can't speak to the exact intent as I wasn't here for that, but even a glance at the tree arrangement suggests that it was a design error.

It is likely that in the future the red-line will see some significant tweaks to its game-play, shifting it back away from AoE/self-heal, and more towards a full out DPS/leveling line, while we try to get Yellow back into the primacy for AoE off-tanking. I don't have any details to offer on those as I'm currently working on other matters, but in terms of intent, expect the builds to move in those general directions.

But in the short term, we're mostly just trying to triage the red-line bugs to stop the bleeding. So to speak.

-Vastin

Thanks Vastin, I think this was the type of communication many of us wanted from SSG. I appreciate it very much.