guardian aa spec

[Splintered]

<p>Good morning all,</p><p> I recently got into a discussion with a guardian friend I know about their aa spec. His current plans is to put every single available point into the wisdon line because it will make him a better tank (all 34 pts). I told him while I thought it was smart to go down and get the final ability if thats what he wanted, I advised him it would be unwise to sink the extra points into that line, as it will carry very little benefit. </p><p> I was hoping I could get some feedback from warriors and others with knowledge to hopefully get some educated opinions regarding whether you think that is a good idea, or whether he is completely off the wall!</p><p> Just a tad background, we will be duo'ing a guardian/defilier, so I told him some extra dps wouldn't hurt, but he was very adoment that he was just there to tank!</p>

[wes_GS]

<p>Int line ftw!</p><p>Really the wisdom line is crap, dps mod and belly smash are useful but the rest of the line doesnt stack up.</p><p>You should really go Agi/Int for tanking and Sta/Int for dps.</p>

[Splintered]

thankyou <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, any other thoughts out there?

[Harbringer Doom]

I rolled a Guardian some time ago, and I have been struggling with his AA choices since he dinged his first AA. I don't have the AA lines in front of me, so I'm just shooting from the hip, but my thought process on the matter has been something like this: First, I will ALWAYS be in a group with my Guard.  A bunch of guildies are level locked, and slowly moving through the tiers, so there is absolutely ZERO chance I will be soloing.  If I can't get a group with my guard, I'm on another toon. 99.9% of that group time I am grouped with an equal level swashy who is also twinked.  And we run often with a geared up Lock.  DPS is not an issue. Second, the absolute single focus of my Guard is PvP.  I will never be raid tanking, and only doing incidental PvE tanking.  I won't need to be PvE specced to the nines in order to take down some tough PvE encounter.  The FOCUS on my guard is PvP. So, with those two points in mind, I needed to decide whether to listen to all the DPS advice I hear on the forums, or go some other route.  There is a lot of comments on the Guard boards about how your DPS output is as important to your hate generation as your taunts.  That only applies to PvE though.  In my case, with my focus, it doesn't apply as much.  No matter how much damage I do to a PvP opponent, they are not going to WILLFULLY target me.  The only reason I die first (which is my job) is if I'm able to MAKE them target me. Again, DPS doesn't do this in PvP. So, I decided to focus all my AA on whichever AA will help me FORCE my PvP opponents to target me.  (And I maxxed out Belly Smash because as a Guard I have very few ways of helping my group slow down the runners.) Now, I know more DPS will help take down encounters faster, help win the fight, etc., etc.  But, if I want to max out DPS, I might as well roll another Swashy.  My job as a Guard is to get all the freeps to target me, and to take the damage while my group beats them down.  Any AA I put towards DPS that could be put towards incresing my hate, my ability to taunt quicker, or my ability to take damage for my group,ates quicker, while it may help me DPS, doesn't support my actual role in the group. So far, its worked out pretty well.  So, I guess to sum up, my strategy is to focus everything I do on whatever will help me keep aggro in PvP.

[Splintered]

so tesar, would you agree with my friend putting every single point he can into wis? From my perspective, even if he went purely just for tanking, he would be better off taking wis and also maxing out another line like agi or something. As far as what I can gather, most of what you were talking about is the eof lines, which he has hardly even looked at.

[Harbringer Doom]

<cite>Splintered wrote:</cite><blockquote>so tesar, would you agree with my friend putting every single point he can into wis? From my perspective, even if he went purely just for tanking, he would be better off taking wis and also maxing out another line like agi or something. As far as what I can gather, most of what you were talking about is the eof lines, which he has hardly even looked at.</blockquote> I'd have to look at the wis line to remember what exactly we're talking about, and how much of an increase each point is.  But if I have to choose between added DPS, or an added percentage of hate, I will choose the hate.  I will choose a hate utility before I will choose a DPS increase.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm not DPS, and I roll with more than enough DPS to make up for my shortcomings. One point I thought of is the buckler reversal argument.  I for one am not going to sacrifice using a tower shield so I can do more DPS.   Also, I'm not going to add to my dodge/agi/etc, because I want people to hit me, because it helps me FORCE them to target me.  I don't know if the logic is sound, but I know my goal is to make them target me as long as possible, so it make sense to me. Some of what I've referred to in my last post is the EOF lines.  I brought that up just because once I've gotten the most hate gain I can from the warrior AA line, I'll switch to the Guardian AA and start working on the increases to my PvP hate gain spells. I probably can be more helpful if I actually look at my AA lines when responding.  I'll check them out when I get home and post again.

[Splintered]

Tesar@Venekor wrote: <blockquote><cite>Splintered wrote:</cite><blockquote>so tesar, would you agree with my friend putting every single point he can into wis? From my perspective, even if he went purely just for tanking, he would be better off taking wis and also maxing out another line like agi or something. As far as what I can gather, most of what you were talking about is the eof lines, which he has hardly even looked at.</blockquote> I'd have to look at the wis line to remember what exactly we're talking about, and how much of an increase each point is.  But if I have to choose between added DPS, or an added percentage of hate, I will choose the hate.  I will choose a hate utility before I will choose a DPS increase.  I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm not DPS, and I roll with more than enough DPS to make up for my shortcomings. One point I thought of is the buckler reversal argument.  I for one am not going to sacrifice using a tower shield so I can do more DPS.   Also, I'm not going to add to my dodge/agi/etc, because I want people to hit me, because it helps me FORCE them to target me.  I don't know if the logic is sound, but I know my goal is to make them target me as long as possible, so it make sense to me. Some of what I've referred to in my last post is the EOF lines.  I brought that up just because once I've gotten the most hate gain I can from the warrior AA line, I'll switch to the Guardian AA and start working on the increases to my PvP hate gain spells. I probably can be more helpful if I actually look at my AA lines when responding.  I'll check them out when I get home and post again. </blockquote><p>Thanks for the reply. One think though about the guardian aa's in general. There is nothing that can really help the guardian force opponents on you quicker from the warrior aa lines. The str line only has a increase % rate, which isn't for pvp. Int could possibly help a little bit. I guess the main thing I am looking for is I believe he is a fool for putting every point into one line, when it won't be much benifit. It also seems dispite whatever reason I give, even when looking at the aa's myself (I have a 47 zerk alt), he just says I don't understand ect. With deminishing returns, a few extra wisdom, or a little bit more of a mit debuff, or 5% extra dps isn't going to make him a better tank then say taking another line to the final ability. </p><p>Is there anyone else who would agree with this? </p>

[Qanil]

<p>I dont know how it equates into Guardian terms, but because I have a 70 berserker I can tell you from just the "warrior perspective" that the Wisdom line was the most useful to me for 69 levels.  Yah, you heard it.  The benefits were there for me until I got some gear that made that whole line basically useless.  The final ability, the one that takes away the penalties of your stances is a very big deal when you gear is sucking ot high heaven, and I mean not raid equipped.  The second I got some decent gear I spec'd clean out of this line.</p><p>Everyone has different opinions on this, but honestly... when you get to end game, and you are raid equipped, and buffed, that line is NOTHING... but on the way up, where you likely outlevel your gear, and spells and all the rest.. that line is pretty sweet.</p>

[Splintered]

Swipe@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote><p>I dont know how it equates into Guardian terms, but because I have a 70 berserker I can tell you from just the "warrior perspective" that the Wisdom line was the most useful to me for 69 levels.  Yah, you heard it.  The benefits were there for me until I got some gear that made that whole line basically useless.  The final ability, the one that takes away the penalties of your stances is a very big deal when you gear is sucking ot high heaven, and I mean not raid equipped.  The second I got some decent gear I spec'd clean out of this line.</p><p>Everyone has different opinions on this, but honestly... when you get to end game, and you are raid equipped, and buffed, that line is NOTHING... but on the way up, where you likely outlevel your gear, and spells and all the rest.. that line is pretty sweet.</p></blockquote> Yes, I agree with you to a point <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. I think the wis line is a smart idea, particularly the final ability, but I am stressing the point that he wants to make the line 8/8/8/8/2, which I have never seen done, no matter what the class.

[Qanil]

yeah , that's weird.

[Mordumor]

<p>As for the hate line AA, remeber there are tons of gears out there with hate proc, making this line much less useful. Tons.</p>

[Tybr]

<p>Wis line...</p><p><img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Mildavyn]

<p>WIS2: Belly Smash. Looks to be pretty nice for PvP if you can get people to actually fight you. Knock down with the sheild attack, then bellysmash for reduced mitigation.</p><p>WIS3: Seasoned Veteran. +2.4 DPS per rank = 19.2% DPS increase. This looks quite useful as well. hitting harder is always a good thing.</p><p>WIS4: Unshakeable. Increase to mitigation... Mitigation is king. Don't beleive what people tell you, more mitigation is ALWAYS better. The diminishing returns curve has changed nothing, people jsut seem to think it has because everyone else is crying about the sky falling. It is not. 100 mitigation is still 100 mitigation. Even in PvP. More is better. Always.</p><p>WIS5: Stance Mastery. This is a good AA, but it's hardly huge. Gaurdians get a +def buff and a +weapon skills buff, so they already offset these penalties a bit (not at 70 yet, cant see the final numbers) still, if you're getting the rest of the line, why not?</p><p>*IF* I were to get the WIS line, I would probably do something like: 4-4-8-6-2 although, this would depend on the final numbers for mitigation in WIS4. The AA lines however are changing with GU36, so we shall see what the good choices will become. I'm thinking they wont change a huge ammount.</p><p>As for getting all the hate gain AAs... why? They do absolutely nothing for PvP... a taunt that increases hate by 1100, is not going to do anything more than one that increases hate by 5... they both have exactly the same effect in PvP. If you can get an AA which gives you ANOTHER taunt, on a seperate timer, then I'm all over it... otherwise I'm looking for more more DPS, or better survival... in that order. (I solo alot)</p><p>My current AA set-up: STA 4-6-8-8-2 // INT 4-1 // STR 4-4-8 After the changes, who knows?</p>