More Guardian Thoughts

[zipfile]

Also, one thing that I really need to look at is the corruption removal on Improved Sting. It really feels too often. We might want to put it on something with a little longer cooldown.

In my correspondences to a certain colleague, I suggested Stagger and he agreed to look at it.

[SSG_Orion]

Bumping my response. Please note Orion that if you want to nerf Guardian heals in red that -OGH will not work.

Yeah, I am wrong on how they are factored - I'll need a solution for that, because with the tools that they have with heals and a much higher damage output they will be ridiculously OP.

[SSG_Orion]

In my correspondences to a certain colleague, I suggested Stagger and he agreed to look at it.

Stagger has the same issue of Sting in that the cooldown is very short. The only benefit to it is that it is NOT typically part of a standard rotation.

Honestly, as much as I am loathe to consider it - it might need to be a new skill.

[SSG_Orion]

For clarification, Guardian's Ward in the Defender of the Free is actually Guardian's Ward: Tactics I just shortened the name because weekend.

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

[zipfile]

Honestly, as much as I am loathe to consider it - it might need to be a new skill.

Can we please not introduce more skills? Increase the cooldown of Stagger a bit by then (as well as damage to compensate), but we do not need another skill.

[SSG_Orion]

Can we please not introduce more skills? Increase the cooldown of Stagger a bit by then (as well as damage to compensate), but we do not need another skill.

We shall see. Again, I really do not want to add new skills. I would love to remove some - but really...this far into the game's development it would be really difficult to do that.

Further, Stagger would need to drop to Level 20, because we want to keep the corruptins relatively in the same level band for when they are gained.

[zipfile]

We shall see. Again, I really do not want to add new skills. I would love to remove some - but really...this far into the game's development it would be really difficult to do that.

Further, Stagger would need to drop to Level 20, because we want to keep the corruptins relatively in the same level band for when they are gained.

I don't see that big of a deal, to be honest.

I guess you could also give it to Force Opening, and make it auto-bestowed instead of traiting for it. We do have Shield Blow like that, why not make parity with Parries too.

Speaking of Force Opening...can we give it something? With all these changes...it'll just be there...sad...alone...with nothing unique about it...maybe a Mitigation debuff....

[Dreadicus]

In an environment where effects are more and more frequently applied (Im talking delvings foremostly) I believe making effect removal have higher cooldown (Numbed senses) shouldn't be the greatest move. I think most tanks should have their effect removal instead tweaked upward to make them more in line with guardian, opposed to having guardian being brought down as to be more in line with other tanks. Just make pvmp effects have stacks in order for them to be more consistent in power, if it is a question of pve-pvp balancing why effect removal is as it is today on other tanks.

On another note I too believe in yellow tree being more focused around debuff-supporting if it is not to be a support tree. The distinctive role of AoE Tank is allready very well established in blue line with yellow off-spec.

[Rino90]

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

Hello, Orion! I really like the work you've done and the new list of changes! Let's go over some of the nuances of the new change list.

Adaptability

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

Will the mechanics of resetting buffs after using the starting skills of parry and block chains be preserved? If so, consider lowering the strength of the buff but removing this annoying interaction.

Shield Wall

Trainable

It seems to me that Shield Wall and Litany of Defiance still need some revision. Perhaps you should add a mechanism to turn off the skill at critical health level. Also, the option you suggested for Juggernaut would look great, namely healing when you get a lethal hit.

Shield of Light

5 Tiers

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

Given the current mechanics, I'm not sure that the bonus threat will have much effect on tanking. As far as I remember Shield-taunt currently gives not too much aggro in terms of damage. In order for the percentage bonus from the talent to make sense would be that the original value of the threat of the skill was at a decent level. Perhaps it would be more interesting to add the mechanics of stealing part of the threat from the members of the group/raid?

Juggernaut

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

I don't think there's anything wrong with this skill in its current form. As I mentioned above, the lethal hit cure effect is better considered in the Litany of Defiance and Shield Wall changes.

Battle-fury

Replaces Reactive Parry

20 Deep set Trait

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

Am I correct in assuming that all response skills (Thrust, Overwhelm, To The King, etc.) will be available for the duration of this skill? If so, that's a very interesting bonus. The only thing I'd cut it down a bit is its cooldown, either directly or through tracery.

Rupture

Replaces Honourable Combat

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

I really like the idea of a temporary powerful DOT that will deal damage while we update the base bleed on the target.
As for the debuff on incoming damage. I would prefer to keep all interactions with yellow line talents unrestricted. In this version of the changes you reduced the strength of the debuff and that's the right move, you may even need to adjust its value a bit more. I think the mechanics of a not too strong copyable AOE debuff with the theoretical possibility of updating it looks more interesting than a temporary strong effect like Oathbreaker's Shame.

Bastion of Light

Bastion of Light
Trainable skill

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

A controllable area with a not-too-long cooldown that affects all targets in it looks more tempting than the last version with a switchable skill and a limited number of targets.

Tenderize

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

It is worth adding a trigger for this talent to the responses, similar to the red line specialization talent.

High-spirited

Now requires 15+ traits in The Fighter of Shadow

Yellow line already has a similar talent, Light-touched. I have nothing against the percentage bonus to incoming healing, but it might be worth making this talent a little more interesting. Given that a lot of attention in the yellow line redesign is focused on light damage, maybe you should add some bonuses related to it, like increasing light damage, or reducing light mitigation on the target, or maybe something quite unusual and original. It would be interesting to see the mechanics interacting with other classes that deal light damage.

Now let's move on to unnamed skills and talents besides the aforementioned Litany of Defiance and Shield Wall:

Break Ranks
If the transfer of this buff into a separate skill is not considered, then you can at least separate the effect of the buff from the strike Shield-taunt? Resist one target and the inability to buff members of the group standing far away from the mobs incredibly annoying.

Disorientation
Let's just fantasize. Is it possible to implement disarming mechanics on mobs?

War-chant
Add the ability to reset cooldown for all skills responses. It's not clear why Shield-taunt and Overwhelm are exceptions.

Cataclysmic Shout
Can't ignore this skill in its current form. Huge cooldown, strange effect that essentially duplicates the passive Radiate, low damage. I'm sure this skill needs a revamp. Maybe make it the final AoE skill of the parry chain, similar to To The King, reducing the cooldown and removing unnecessary mechanics. Or, for example, add interaction with Bastion of Light, temporarily enhancing the guardian inside the zone depending on the active talent line.

Anyway, thanks so much for the opportunity to discuss the upcoming changes to my favorite class!

[zipfile]

It's not clear why Shield-taunt and Overwhelm are exceptions.

About 5 years ago, Vastin made changes to War-chant that caused it to apply the reduction to Overwhelm and Shield-taunt.

Problem is that, for some reason, using Whirling Retaliation put Overwhelm on cooldown for 5 seconds and Overwhelm put Whirling on a 10s cooldown.
In a follow up post, Vastin couldn't figure it out why, reverted the changes and we've been stuck with it ever since.

It definitely has something to do with Overwhelm and Shield-taunt being bestowed by trait line specialization rather than anything else....

[Rino90]

About 5 years ago, Vastin made changes to War-chant that caused it to apply the reduction to Overwhelm and Shield-taunt.

Problem is that, for some reason, using Whirling Retaliation put Overwhelm on cooldown for 5 seconds and Overwhelm put Whirling on a 10s cooldown.
In a follow up post, Vastin couldn't figure it out why, reverted the changes and we've been stuck with it ever since.

It definitely has something to do with Overwhelm and Shield-taunt being bestowed by trait line specialization rather than anything else....

I hope the developers will be able to deal with this problem. Non-functioning mechanics are incredibly annoying.

[Tepee]

Good evening. I wanted to take a moment and let you all know where we are thinking the Guardian will shake out. After reviewing a lot of the feedback here and taking a step back to play through the current specs, we are looking at the following:

Dear Orion,

I just wanted to thank you for listening for the feedbacks, and I really appreciate that now you finally taking into consideration all 4 groups of Guardians as I told you earlier.
I really, really like the fact that in red line, both 2h and sword and board Guardians got something for them, and I'm sure that the current changes would satisfy even current yellow-liners, because they can use their current skills on top of another line.

Also the Protection by the Shield/Sword is very nice! Just give Reactive Response to trigger from PBtSword.

All in all, I'm very satisfied by this direction you're taking, and of course it needs some polishing, but you're on the right track now imo.

Keep up the good work!

[Rino90]

Stagger has the same issue of Sting in that the cooldown is very short. The only benefit to it is that it is NOT typically part of a standard rotation.

Honestly, as much as I am loathe to consider it - it might need to be a new skill.

You're underestimating Stagger and its role in the current rotation because of its fast animation, but that's not what we're talking about.

What kind of cooldown would the developers like to see on the Corruption removal skill?

[Tepee]

Protection by the Sword now reads "Boosts melee damage of you and fellowship members. Enables you to react to an attack that is blocked, parried, or evaded by a fellowship member under your protection within 10m.", but Reactive Parry becomes Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect increases the range of your benefical response effects to 20m.
Cause and effect deals damage back to attackers that are partially or fully blocked, parried, or evaded by those under the effect of Protection by the Sword. (Damage to be determined but scales with level.)

Yep, this is what I wanted. Awesome!

[Kotal]

The damage will be tactical too.

if you wanna make the damage tactical does that mean deals tactical damage or use the guardians tactical mastery?

either way if you wanna make this a tool for add tanking i would like you to consider making the damage aspect on it optional (or just not do any damage at all), since it will otherwise potentially interfere with dazed mobs.
i know you can just not use the skill, just like war chant, but that would mean the impact of that skill effect can't be too powerful to give up for scenarios where you have to take CC into consideration.

[Thunderblast]

Yes! Yes yes yes! This latest iteration of your plan is amazing! I would be a very very VERY happy customer if you just rolled with this. That said, I think there are a few points where I have some suggestions.

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

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

The Defender of the Free

Adaptability

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

Sounds very good. Although, if the mits bonuses are ratings-based rather than percentages I would prefer you left the old version.

Protection by the Shield

Replaces Shield Wall as a set trait bonus

Toggle skill - not disabled by combat states

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

Really great idea! Fully support this! Also great because it adds parity between Keen Blade and Defender of the Free.

Shield of Light

5 Tiers

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

Also good. Why call it Shield of Light? Shield of Light sounds like a name that belongs in Fighter of Shadow. Also this would need some tuning to Shield-taunt to make a 15% increase in threat generation meaningful.

Warrior's Fortitude

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

This is good. Is the Physical Mitigation increase the same 2% that Warrior's Heart currently gives with this trait?

Juggernaut

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

I really love what you're trying to do here, but I'd actually rather the old version of Juggernaut to this.

Instead make Juggernaut do this:
--------------------------
Juggernaut
Immediate

Sets block chance to 100%.
Sets resist chance to 100%.
You become immune to all combat states.

On any damage:
Negate 100% of damage
Subtract 30% of maximum morale

Duration: 15s
Cooldown: 5m
---------------------------

This is a general buff to Juggernaut, with an increase to the cooldown to accommodate. The confusing "on any damage" clause can be explained: replaces any damage that slips through Juggernaut's avoidance defenses with a flat 30% of max morale hit. That way, Juggernaut has mostly the same effect that it always has (which is, to say, invincibility to avoidable attacks), except that it now does something against unavoidable attacks, and prevents the Guardian from being one-shotted (which I believe is the intent of the Never Surrender-esque rework you were proposing).

The new 5m cooldown is pretty self-explanatory: Juggernaut would be more powerful, still weaker than Last Stand, probably about the same level as At the Fore, so it needs a longer cooldown.

[B][COLOR="#40E0D0"]The Keen Blade

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

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

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

Protection by the Sword

15 deep Set Trait

Toggle Skill - not interrupted by combat state effects

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

I really love this Retaliation/Whirling Retaliation don't need responses idea. It's perfect. However, Protection by the Sword then seems halfway redundant. Instead of having the spec bonus of Keen Blade be that Retaliation skills become Breach skills, make this, and the reduced healing values, be part of the effect of Protection by the Sword.

This way, a solo Guardian specced as Keen Blade doesn't have reduced self-healing ability, but has to compromise some damage output. Protection by the Sword is then a group-play ability that hones Keen Blade talents to be more suited for DPSing in a group.

But I really don't care that much. What you have here is 95% of perfect anyway. Thank you so much for this!

The Fighter of Shadow

Can no longer be specialized.

Bastion of Light

Bastion of Light
Trainable skill

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

Awesome. Truly superb. Is the light damage going to be a when-you-put-the-effect-down thing or is it going to be a pulses-every-three-seconds thing?

Defensive Expertise

5 Tiers
Increase Parry and Block by 1%/tier

I really like this. It consolidates some of the less interesting traits in the other two lines and makes room in Keen Blade and Defender of the Free for some more interesting stuff.

Flash of Light

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

Sounds good. Also sounds like a great feature to have a tracery associated with it, maybe a +Flash of Light melee light damage?


Thank you for getting feedback from your proposed changes and working it into the ideas you're developing. I think I'm not alone in my gratitude for the level of communication with these changes. I have to say, this is much better than other class reworks in the past (sometimes it has felt almost as if the devs changed things for no reason without explanation or without listening to input first), in LotRO but also probably the best dev-to-community interaction I've seen in any game. I really like this "brainstorm with the community" approach! Keep it up for future updates!

[Normok]

Yep, this is what I wanted. Awesome!

I second this!

[Fantomex]

Did not think to check forums over the weekend, will need a bit to parse the 100 new posts. Just wanted to point out that of 67 player posts, 40 came from 4 of 22 participants. Not necessarily a bad thing, just context for the basis of your changes.

Sad to hear yellow guard is dead but not surprised. Sometimes we must settle for the faster horse.

[Tepee]

Did not think to check forums over the weekend, will need a bit to parse the 100 new posts. Just wanted to point out that of 67 player posts, 40 came from 4 of 22 participants. Not necessarily a bad thing, just context for the basis of your changes.

Sad to hear yellow guard is dead but not surprised. Sometimes we must settle for the faster horse.

I really don't think it is "dead".

In the current live, you play red/yellow, blue/yellow, or yellow/red basically, in rare cases yellow/blue. Noone combines red and blue, and everyone goes to yellow after the main tree, or if yellow is the main, then you start purchasing in the others.

Why exactly yellow is "dead" when you can just spec in red or blue, and purchase all traits in yellow before doing anything in the main tree? You can just spec into red, and go "screw it, I wanna play yellow", and buy all yellow stuff you got used to.
They even kept the 2h-tanking thing, so you can do that too. What is exactly your problem? Because at this point I really don't understand "yellow is dead" people.
Call it green and orange, yellow line will continues to live, but with the combined power of the other lines, so stronger than before basically.

[CaerArianrhod]

Also, one thing that I really need to look at is the corruption removal on Improved Sting. It really feels too often. We might want to put it on something with a little longer cooldown.

That could cause a big problem within the game. Think about Shelob etc. Or are you going to cut down such stacks of corruption to half to compensate such a change?

[zipfile]

That could cause a big problem within the game. Think about Shelob etc. Or are you going to cut down such stacks of corruption to half to compensate such a change?

Lol

[Technician46]

That could cause a big problem within the game. Think about Shelob etc. Or are you going to cut down such stacks of corruption to half to compensate such a change?

I agree w/ you I don't think Orion should change this at all after all wardens can spam their corruption removal skill appox. every 2 sec. and mini's also can remove multiple (5 at least) corruption within a couple of seconds. So NO, it's NOT to often. And like this poster mentioned the amount of corruptions that have cropped up lately is a bit to much. Also I want to make mention of the fact that often Tanks are kiting so this mean 2 things:

1. When guard is tank and is kiting they are not likely to use their corruption removal skill and

2. If the guard is dpsing and the tank is kiting it is harder to hit a moving target for melee classes then for range, specially when you are trying to avoid puddles and other stuff that goes on when trying to catch up to your target.

Again I agree w/ you here and I believe Orion should NOT change this.

******On another note I think he should leave "Ignore the Pain" as it is, please don't make the cd longer.******

[Technician46]

Lol

You really need to stop mocking ppl for their Ideas.

[zipfile]

You really need to stop mocking ppl for their Ideas.

It's not an idea, it's a statement. And it's factually incorrect that Guardian had any bearing on the Shelob fight until after the many nerfs to that fight as well as Guardian getting buffs.

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

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

Edit: Same as with Ignore the Pain, it's ridiculously overpowered right now, I'm struggling to see how people think this is good for the game.
The original nerf idea was really good, adding an extra second to the cooldown per removed debuff. And even with this change, it will still be, by far, the best self-cleanse skill in the game.

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

[Kotal]

It's not an idea, it's a statement. And it's factually incorrect that Guardian had any bearing on the Shelob fight until after the many nerfs to that fight as well as Guardian getting buffs.

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

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

Edit: Same as with Ignore the Pain, it's ridiculously overpowered right now, I'm struggling to see how people think this is good for the game.
The original nerf idea was really good, adding an extra second to the cooldown per removed debuff. And even with this change, it will still be, by far, the best self-cleanse skill in the game.

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

i wanna add to this:
this rework with orions current plans seems to be an actual, functioning rework aiming at making guardian future proof. this includes making red a useful damage spec, and making blue a bit more in line with the two most recently reworked tank specs.

so nerfing the two niche strengths guardian has is 100% a good thing. i agree that the original idea for itp was great, keeping it the same for cutting animations in red, but giving the opportunity to increase the effects cleansed at a cost of longer CD. the nerf to CR is fine as well. sting is too good of a skill to have it on or to nerf the CD of, so moving it to stagger would be nice. adding a new skill for it might be a pain really, but moving it away from sting is definitely the way to go.

we are hopefully approaching a point where both red and blue will be good, useful and future proof specs, so we can 100% do away with very specific niches that might in the end hold back either of the specs for balance reasons. can't have competitive dps while having the quickest CR in your basic rotation at all times with no sacrifice whatsoever.