Class Update - Guardians

[Vastin]

Ok. Done. Here's what it looks like for now.

- Put knockdown back on Brutal Charge.
- Prey on the Weak now procs addt'l damage when any skill crits against a target with Slashing Wound. (Unfortunately these show up in parses as some kind of totally generic damage?)
- Greatly increased general Guardian instant skill damage (varies by skill)
- Overpower converts Deep Wound to Terrible Wound (higher intensity bleed, stacks with deep wound)
- Modestly decreased base bleed damage and LI Bleed bonus.
- Added bleed damage bonus to deeper wounds - affects Deep Wound and Terrible Wound.
- Reduced base bleed duration of some bleeds slightly.
- Reduced AoE Targets on Challenge, and increased its cooldown.
- Non imbued AoE Target legacy updated to match imbued AoE DPS legacy (grants additional dmg rather than targets).
- Increased number of base targets on several Guardian AoE Skills.

Kind of working some things in at the last minute here, so... probably some new bugs as well. <sigh>

I'll get started on fixing those shortly.

-Vastin

[Macdui]

Vastin can you not convince Friendly Hat as to the value of communication in this process.

We can follow the progress with you but elsewhere we're getting nothing and it could be a right egit being heard for all we know.

Thanks for your considerable efforts. I will reserve the right to change opinion once it hits live ofc.


Mac

[TiberiasKirk]

Ok. Done. Here's what it looks like for now.

- Put knockdown back on Brutal Charge.
- Prey on the Weak now procs addt'l damage when any skill crits against a target with Slashing Wound. (Unfortunately these show up in parses as some kind of totally generic damage?)
- Greatly increased general Guardian instant skill damage (varies by skill)
- Overpower converts Deep Wound to Terrible Wound (higher intensity bleed, stacks with deep wound)
- Modestly decreased base bleed damage and LI Bleed bonus.
- Added bleed damage bonus to deeper wounds - affects Deep Wound and Terrible Wound.
- Reduced base bleed duration of some bleeds slightly.
- Reduced AoE Targets on Challenge, and increased its cooldown.
- Non imbued AoE Target legacy updated to match imbued AoE DPS legacy (grants additional dmg rather than targets).
- Increased number of base targets on several Guardian AoE Skills.

Kind of working some things in at the last minute here, so... probably some new bugs as well. <sigh>

I'll get started on fixing those shortly.

-Vastin

I get that the goal is to make it so raids can't get by with just one tank. Not sure why we would complain. If raids need more tanks its just less unemployed guards.

Replacement for Tactical DPS (Shield use) on Guard belt is?

[commdorvis]

Concerning the relic (not shield use), Physical Mastery and Critical Rating relic would seem most useful for Guardian if aggro is to be based on physical damage skills. I think it's backwards, but prior to Tactical Damage Rating relic I was using a relic with +Partial Parry and Evade Mitigation. It's extremely minor but there isn't much else to do. I also wondered about the effects of a +Outgoing Healing and Critical Rating relic, if that affected any of our self-heals, but most are percentage-based. What we're looking at is a DPS class that wears a shield and uses taunts.

Maybe the next content update will have something.

[Gandalfy]

- Put knockdown back on Brutal Charge.

EXCELLENT! Thank you.

- Greatly increased general Guardian instant skill damage (varies by skill)

Great idea - look forward to seeing it

- Increased number of base targets on several Guardian AoE Skills.

Excellent! This was sorely needed.

- Reduced AoE Targets on Challenge, and increased its cooldown.

Because Challenge is the main agrro skill for guardians, if you nerf it, you will need to create a new AoE aggro skill to complement it.
This would be welcome, as the more skills we have to choose from, the more skill and strategy is required, making it more fun.

There are many situations where the guardian is the sole tank (eg. 3 and 6 man instances) and we NEED to be able to hold aggro on many targets.
Watching your healer die while your tiny selection of aggro skills are all on CD is NOT fun.

[salmonfire]

Making new LI's has me triggered, i am so sick of sewers!!! How about Guards after this update can decon their LI's and all scrolls and crystals are returned stacked and bound to character!!???

[Gandalfy]

Aaaand, I have to decide what to do with 'Shield Use', or what to replace it with.
-Vastin

My vote is for Incoming Healing, as this will always be useful.

[Finnacles]

Here's a couple of my ideas

Brutal Assault:
It seems that DPS now revolves around the use of Brutal Assault, a skill that could do with a shorter animation.

Also, as someone who plays from Australia, I have a gripe with the Brutal Assault refresh mechanic. The skill only refreshes AFTER the parry-chain skill has been fully executed (if the refresh procs, that is). If I had nice ping, this wouldn't matter, however with a steady 200 or so ping, i'm left hanging for roughly half a second waiting to see whether or not brutal assault refreshed. I'm not sure if this is possible, but it would help immensely if the skill refreshes DURING the animation of thrust/retaliation/TTK etc. That way i'm not slowing myself down.

Prey on the weak:
The additional damage on crit sounds nice, but i'd really like the ongoing and reliable healing that scales with how many mobs you're fighting to return, even if it is weaker.

Hammer down:
If brutal charge is regaining its knockdown, I'd prefer the old finisher version of hammer down to come back. Increased damage on low morale targets, and refreshes if it is the killing blow. A satisfying skill to repeat, and a unique one for Guardians capstone skill in DPS line.

Radiate:
I haven't been able to have radiate work at all, is there any reason it doesn't work in red now?

Some other minor ideas:
The 3 bleed skills all have red icons, and two of them feature a sword pointing up & to the left, so I propose a minor change to some skill icons, as seen below.



Contrasting colours like this would make the tiny icons below enemy HP easy to distinguish.
blue = ST, longer lasting.
red = high dmg
yellow = AoE
It'd also spice up the skill bars a little.

EDIT: One more tiny thing, not sure if this is where to ask for it, but could we get an option for guardian to display their shields on their back instead of on the arm?

[Macdui]

Hmm, another AE taunt. What could we call it... Challenge the Darkness

I loved those days... Trash pulls in the Rift, you messed up the pather pull and it's bringing two other groups with it. CtD and Pledge up and kite backwards around a rock. Heroic.

That was the old tank, you had all the skills and some you'd not use for months but they were there and ready to use when it all went pear shaped. But now it's all about a costly trait to invest in and you can't for something that you'd rarely use.


Mac

[Joedangod]

Any chance that Imbued LI 2h passives will be seeing an increase any time soon? Red Guardians can't dual wield so they're kinda pressured into using 2h weapons to maximise DPS which results in them missing out on a lot of stats that an offhand would normally give them.

[Decrepify]

Perhaps make a whole new trait for challenge, make a capstone. Nerf max targets on challenge to 5 and AOE to 5-10m. Have trait increase the targets up to 5 and AOE by 50%.

This way, if you want a better challenge, you're forced to go deep blue. Have it also scale at 5 ranks (Make it replace that useless eyesore called Break Ranks)

[Joedangod]

This way, if you want a better challenge, you're forced to go deep blue. Have it also scale at 5 ranks (Make it replace that useless eyesore called Break Ranks)

Kinda kills yellow a bit.

[Decrepify]

Kinda kills yellow a bit.

Sorry to say this, but how can you kill something that's already dead?
Edit: I really wish yellow had better traits and overall usefulness outside of griefing in the moors. It sounds like a such an interesting line and I would love to play it competitively. But yeah....

[Joedangod]

Sorry to say this, but how can you kill something that's already dead?

Technically yellow is the DPSy tank traitline so it really should be coming out of this change of focus better than blue.

Admittedly I'm biased and just want to switch my Guards default tank spec. Yellow is just so much more interesting than the dumb "I'm basically invincible" premise of Blue.

[Decrepify]

Technically yellow is the DPSy tank traitline so it really should be coming out of this change of focus better than blue.

Admittedly I'm biased and just want to switch my Guards default tank spec. Yellow is just so much more interesting than the dumb "I'm basically invincible" premise of Blue.

Agreed, completely. You feel like as you make an actual impact with disables and debuffs rather than with just standing there and cycling block responses and Guards Ward.

Still, yellow is riddled with useless traits, some of the talents are so pretty bad. Not to mention they still didn't fix Mark healing you after you pass over some talents.

If Radiate worked again at 100%, and they fixed the double debuff stacking bug, it might be interesting to run in certain instances as an offtank. But currently, I just don't see it....

[Zahu]

So, and excuse me if I am wrong in that, the thread started as a revamp and boost in the Guardian dps line. Then somehow the coversation diverted into aoe taunts and the future need (?) of more tanks in raid, so we came to the point that it is anounced that challenge will be nerfed, and then captain's and warden's aoe taunt will be nerfed, but not now, maybe in the future. So, only guardian's aoe taunt will be nerfed for now. Am I understanding this correctly??

To summarise (at least in my mind): They say, Yes we' ll boost guardian's dps, BUT for now we will nerf his aoe taunt too. And we will do it only for guardian atm, cause other classes' aoe taunts will be nerfed in future. And btw the only class who really needs a significant boost in tanking line (beorning) will not be touched now too. Maybe in future too.

It does not sound right guys. It does not.

[Joedangod]

It does not sound right guys. It does not.

I'm actually not sure why these traitline changes aren't a bit more focused with them tackling a specific role at a time rather than specific classes. It's gonna be kinda odd to see Beorning potentially take the place of strongest healer after these minstrel changes and RK's are probably going to drop out of use in raid content until they get some DPS increases.

Still, there did need to be class balance work done at some point and it's better off being done now whilst we don't really have any fresh group content to do. Hopefully things will have been normalised between classes before U23 Instance Cluster hits.

[Rognomli]

I'm sorry but as someone who has been maining a Guard since day 1 with the purpose of tankimg I cannot get behind changes that affect it for the worst in my opinion. The reasons for this are aa follows:

1.I cannot trust you guys with making changes to complex mechanics such as tanking. I hope that you will take the necessary time to make sure the changes applied will work appropriately(fingers crossed) but I just cannot forget Helm's Deep launch when force taunts were broken and tanking guards were left scrambling to understand why such changes to a perfectly functional tanking process were made.

2.The premise of tanking through DPS with increased multipliers on skills is plainly put not as enjoyable as pre Helm's Deep guardian tanking was. I and many others enjoy tanking now as well but its nothing compared to what it was before. If you want to steer the class away from relying on Force Taunts(which we have been asking for a long time) then pre Helm's Deep guardian is the way to go.

3.Nerfing challenge targets alongside a general nerf to AoE targets will hurt tanking a substantially. The community will simply adjust by looking for the next class that tank masses of mobs reliably (warden). In order to make instanced content more reliant on double tanks, changes need to be made on the instance first and only THEN on the classes.

4. I don't like the fact that AoE targets is being removed from the unimbued LI. If you want to make people rely less on unimbued Lis then make it so you cannot switch Lis, in combat(as others have mentioned). Also make Imbued Lis more attractive. Guardian tanking weapon is a complete joke, totally abandoning superior tanking legacies such as Guardians Ward duration for more DPS legacies?

If you are so inclined on nerfing challenge however I have a few changes to propose that would mediate the nerf much better than steering us towards more dps based threat(yikes):

a)Give us back pre Helm's Deep Shield of Fire trait(increased threat from Shield Taunt + increased targets)
b)Make Vexing Blow generate additional threat once again(one of the skills driven to obsoletion in terms of tanking with Helm's Deep)
c)Pre Helm's Deep Litany of Defiance. Once literally the vanguard of Guardian tanking, driven into total obsoletion with Helm's Deep changes. Truly one of the saddest changes made to Guardian tanking.

Oh and one more thing, the current number of targets on AoE skills.is.laughable. You cannot expect us to tank AoE with a nerfed force taunt and 5 targets on many melee skills. Although its left to be seen how it's going to work, I would be surprised if Guardians don't start to struggle with a healer's aggro on any pull including more than 5-6 mobs.

[Eloriel]

I'm looking at bumping the overpower debuff to -10% attack speed - keeping the duration short however. It may not be the sexiest debuff in the dps charts and parses, but its technically very valuable in group situations, esp against bosses. Other than that I'm just bumping the dps on Overwhelm so that it's a solid striker in the rotation.

General initial skill damage for the guardian is going up again to get them closer to where they generally want to be.

Still trying to sort out that Brutal Charge/knockdown mechanic.

Now comes the bit many of you are probably going to be pretty annoyed by:

Guardian AoE Target numbers are generally being reduced to compensate for greatly increased overall DPS, and Challenge in particular is being reduced substantially, with a considerably longer cooldown and reduced targets. I suspect this will initially be unpopular for MT guardians, but I want to make sure that in large, complex encounters, the dynamics of managing pulls are not reduced to a single tank simply pulling and holding all threat for as long as they can be kept alive. My goal is for raid groups in particular (and occasionally 6-mans) be required to field multiple tanks/off-tanks and share aggro management responsibilities to keep the team safe.

Also, as the base DPS of the guardian is going up quite substantially relative to the main DPS classes, Guardians should find it easier to keep ahead of the DPS threat curve once they have grabbed threat. That's the theory anyway. If it doesn't work in practice, I'll certainly be revisiting these changes. The idea is not to make threat management impossible - just to keep it interesting and dynamic, and to encourage some tank-juggling even in circumstances when the mobs are not explicitly using threat-dump mechanics.

-Vastin

How the hell did a 'don't give a damn' red line buffing for guardians go to completely rewriting the core mechanics of the class in its primary role? How about you do not release your utterly flawed theory and actually test your theory first? That means you, VASTIN, and a few of your SSG team actually go play your changes on test server in a raid with a top geared champions rks and hunters and then come back to us and tell us how changing aoe targets and challenge on tank guardians work for controlling a modest number of targets with some actual thought. These changes you think are neat are not going to work out like you think they will, they never do and SSG/Turbine have never been able to admit they screw up and fix something immediately, no you will let it sit broken and screwed up and let more people leave the game because they are tired of the nonsense.

[Macdui]

We had a brief period when we couldn't switch LIs in combat and Turbine got a lot of hate for that move.

Far too many people at the top end have switch LIs they have put considerable effort into, time cash and resources, refund anyone?

For a while I kept a maxed out targets non-imbued belt but gave up on it when the Shield Rank fell far behind my main belts with every LI increase. Now look at us...

We have hunters not maxing melee dps LIs, minis and rks with LIs that have little to offer using starlit crystals on. And we have a belt that used to help at least the tank spec.

Perhaps the belt LI should get a revamped Shield damage/Shield threat and a 1%-5%+ crit that we don't have as a trait as guardians when many classes do. Possibly tactical classes can get some love with their out of spec LI's healing/tact damage.

Mac

[elzeqq]

How the hell did a 'don't give a damn' red line buffing for guardians go to completely rewriting the core mechanics of the class in its primary role? How about you do not release your utterly flawed theory and actually test your theory first? That means you, VASTIN, and a few of your SSG team actually go play your changes on test server in a raid with a top geared champions rks and hunters and then come back to us and tell us how changing aoe targets and challenge on tank guardians work for controlling a modest number of targets with some actual thought. These changes you think are neat are not going to work out like you think they will, they never do and SSG/Turbine have never been able to admit they screw up and fix something immediately, no you will let it sit broken and screwed up and let more people leave the game because they are tired of the nonsense.

Yeah, i agree. There is no need to change amount of challenge targets or CD of it, these changes are too RNG made, when you start changing tank classes you need to first know how it will affect other classes and raids, i can already say that Abyss trash pulls will be really hard to tank with nerfed amount of targets. Please test your theory first and test how you will tank against top geared DPSers before you force us to test it for you.
Vastin, please focus on the actual problems of balance and not on random things you think will improve game balance.

[siipperi]

Nerffed targets isn't going to be issue. There's is always 2 tanks to choose from in the raid, even if they could be playing other spec in some trash pulls. Just revert to tank and there you go. But what matters is if they go through with that change it needs to happen to all tanks at the same time. If we are being honest This is total joke:


It's very much true tanks are far too potent on AoE tanking but changes need to happen to all classes or it's no point rolling forward with this change at this point.

[Wolf2x]

Yeah, i agree. There is no need to change amount of challenge targets or CD of it, these changes are too RNG made, when you start changing tank classes you need to first know how it will affect other classes and raids, i can already say that Abyss trash pulls will be really hard to tank with nerfed amount of targets. Please test your theory first and test how you will tank against top geared DPSers before you force us to test it for you.
Vastin, please focus on the actual problems of balance and not on random things you think will improve game balance.

I actually think the reduced Challenge targets and increased CD will make the trash pulls more interesting for the group, Far from undoable. You have an off-tank with the only job to give bubble to main tank at start and put up defensive buffs for the fellowship, and occasionaly tanking 1 target who could easily use some more action with pulling the mobs who got away from main tank's aggro. It would also give a reason for LM to actually stay alert during trash pulls with their CC, at least against the ones who are not immune.

[elzeqq]

I actually think the reduced Challenge targets and increased CD will make the trash pulls more interesting for the group, Far from undoable. You have an off-tank with the only job to give bubble to main tank at start and put up defensive buffs for the fellowship, and occasionaly tanking 1 target who could easily use some more action with pulling the mobs who got away from main tank's aggro. It would also give a reason for LM to actually stay alert during trash pulls with their CC, at least against the ones who are not immune.

No. With the planned nerf, it will indeed be undoable. Also, which mobs can you CC except assasins/zealots???

[Wolf2x]

No. With the planned nerf, it will indeed be undoable. Also, which mobs can you CC except assasins/zealots???

Well in most pulls you actually clear, there are more Zealots than any other type of mob, so I don't see how it can be overlooked. But to answer your question; Defiler, Slave Culler, Soldier, Tracker, Maddened Nurnoth.

Oh wait, you skip the pulls some of those mobs are in anyway...