More Guardian Thoughts

[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!