The Guardian

[Shorcon]

<p>The guardian needs serious looking into. They were at one time the go to tank of eq2. Now they are about usless. I have done extensive testing against other tank classes including crusaders, zerk and with better gear and spell I cant out agro them. They can at will pull the mob off me unless of course I am under reinforcements. They imediatly pull the mob off of me after every snap. They are using dps to do this. The gaurdian needs heavy dps love or something. I was in a group with a zerker parsing over 10k consistant against single target and way more on multiple mob encounters. Please SOE look into the guardian.</p><p>There are so many posts in the forums that claim that the guardian is in need of serious love. Look around.</p>

[woolf2k]

<p>that's the way guardians have always been cause they could mitigate tons more than the other tanks. </p><p>So classes that transfered hate or caused the guardian to increase it's hate was essential.</p>

[Kunaak]

<p>sounds to me you just play the wrong tank.</p><p>you cant have it all. a berserker is weaker tank on buffs and defensive abilities - but better on DPS.</p><p>a SK, is alot more AOE damage then just about any tank.</p><p>a guardian is a single target tank, with immense defensive abilities. you cant give everything to 1 tank class. to me, it just sounds like you want to be a berserker or SK.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Jaine@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>that's the way guardians have always been cause they could mitigate <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">tons</span> <strong>1.5%</strong> more than the other tanks. </p></blockquote><p>There fixed that one for ya.</p><p>The notion was cause the class could choose exactly when to stoneskin they suffered from the ability to hold aggro.  Of course now nearly any class can do this, and the fact that the guadian class can do marginally more of it doesn't justify the variance in aggro potential.</p><p>Now, I've said that over and over again.  I've said it to dev's faces, I've said it in beta's, I've said it in class forums, etc. </p><p>We just have to accept nothing will ever be done to address the class's aggro issue, and once your guild has broken in content you only need to log your guard in for a few specific fights.</p>

[Shorcon]

<p><cite>Jaine@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>that's the way guardians have always been cause they could mitigate tons more than the other tanks. </p><p>So classes that transfered hate or caused the guardian to increase it's hate was essential.</p></blockquote><p>New to the game? I have MT for hardcore raid guilds since DOF release. I keep hearing these absurd satements. Thats the way guardians have always been. I as a guardian am a pure tank along with the zerker. I can't hold single target aggro against any of the other classes mentioned before when we both go all out to test this. It is not theory. It is fact. When you put a guardian against any other tank they will out agro you. They will jump your snaps with just dps. They will continuously snap back after every hit with reinforcments up.  You cant as a guardian out agro even single target mobs. FACT. I have tested this and it is fact. Maybe before SF expac we could hold single target aggro but that has gone away. We are being out dpsed by other tank classes by an margin of 300% and better. We cant hold aggro better than any other tank. We are only better than brawlers due to the fact they cant mitigate damage close to us. I have not tested that yet but have against crusader/hybrid and up. Guardians are broken and need to be fixed. I will not quit playing my guardian. I will not betray to another class. Please fix the guardians soe.</p><p>To all the know it alls who keep posting crap like the post quote herein please just stop. Dont talk. You are not helping the cause and in no way know what you are talking about.</p><p>Hybrid tanks have become the pure tanks with no loss to ,,,,,, let me rephrase that,,,,, with additions to thier dps and heal abilities. We as guardians have allways sacrificed the ability to heal and dps for 2 things. To take a hit and to hold aggro. Why is the SK the premium tank? Why are they still dpsing like no tommarrow if they are to be top tank? Why do they get what guardians have never had? The best of all classes......</p><p>Please, please, please soe look into these facts. Gaurdians cant dps, cant heal, and now cant tank. Please fix this.</p>

[Shorcon]

<p><cite>Kunaak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>sounds to me you just play the wrong tank.</p><p>you cant have it all. a berserker is weaker tank on buffs and defensive abilities - but better on DPS.</p><p>a SK, is alot more AOE damage then just about any tank.</p><p>a guardian is a single target tank, with immense defensive abilities. you cant give everything to 1 tank class. to me, it just sounds like you want to be a berserker or SK.</p></blockquote><p>Yet another SK preaching about how guardians cant have it all.  I dont want your dps. I dont want your heals. I want your aggro and then some. I deserver it. You ever lvl a guard to cap? You ever paid the dues to get the best tank class out thier? No dps or heals soloing? Taking forever for a lvl 20 kill update quest non heroic? We sacrifice so much to have what I am asking for here. We should have more agro than you SK. We should mit more than you SK. Not 1.5% more but large doses more. We should hold single and multiple targets over you SK.</p><p>We as guardians have to work agro through single target. You SK dont. We have to have skill to tank our toon. You SK dont. Easy button is fine with me. I dont care if other guilds use easy button SK's to tank their raids. I care that when a guardian comes to raid an SK isn't worried about if they have skill or not. They could care less if they guardian off tanking accidently through lack of knowledge or ignorant flexing reinforce aoe's. They dont need to worry about it because they still wont loose the mob for long. They will still continuously snap back the mobs through aoe agro. We as guardians have to worry about wasting snaps on tanks that dont have a clue how to play or flex. We not only have to have a premium geared premium mastered class, we also have to have 100% commitment from other tank classes like sk,zerk,pal that they can moderate thier aggro. Even then they pull the mobs away accidently at times through sheer dps.</p><p>I love your statement thier. "you cant give everything to 1 tank class. to me, it just sounds like you want to be a berserker or SK."</p><p>You as a Sk, or Zerker have everything. I have nothing. [Removed for Content]. L2p before making this kind of statement. I wish some of the truely skilled SK's would post here. They are all quiet due to the fact that they know the trueth. It has been posted on other forums from some of the best SK's out there that they are way OP and that the guardians have been trashed.</p><p>It's time to fix them SOE. Please fix them.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>Guardians are fine other then reducing a small amount of shadowknights dps while tanking. All tank classes are more balanced then they have EVER been. Jacking up guardian agro so that they hold aoe agro like a shadowknight is broken.</p>

[steelbadger]

<p><cite>Jaine@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>that's the way guardians have always been cause they could mitigate tons more than the other tanks. </p></blockquote><p>This simply isn't true.  We don't.</p><p>Our def stance allows us to take 2-2.5% less damage than an equally geared Crusader.  BUT a crusader also gets far more bonuses to shield.  A Guard gets 12% shield block chance; a SK gets 30% shield block chance and a Pally gets 39% Shield block chance.</p><p>That means that, assuming they use the same shield, a crusader will take about 5-7% less damage thanks to blocking.</p><p>And pallies get a flat 10% damage reduction on their myth buff while we guards have a 5% <em>proc</em>.</p><p>In terms of pure damage taken a Paladin especially is probably taking about 10% less damage than an equally geared Guard.</p><p>Our mit bonus on Def stance is quickly becoming irrelevant due to how close to cap we can get and our mitigation temp buffs are completely useless.  Maybe you can make the argument that ToS, DR and DM can make up for that deficiency but the numbers are clear that a Paladin will take less damage if we consider just passive defenses if all else is equal.</p>

[Shorcon]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Guardians are fine other then reducing a small amount of shadowknights dps while tanking. All tank classes are more balanced then they have EVER been. Jacking up guardian agro so that they hold aoe agro like a shadowknight is broken.</p></blockquote><p>This would be an SK telling me that a guardian is fine the way it is. Never heard an SK say this before. Stop.</p>

[Rahatmattata]

<p>His sig says he's a bruiser. Just sayin.</p><p>Personally, I don't care if a crusader can solo better than me, pvp better than me, do more dps than me, and generate more threat than me. I just want more defense. Paladins are too close to guards defensively on the raid progression level IMO, and I argue they are even more defensive than a guard in 95% of the game's content.</p><p>Just about any other plate tank (possibly even brawlers) have better survivability while tanking anything other than hard hitting mobs. Even the hard hitting mobs become seemingly weaker once the other tanks have farmed gear and gotten mit, avoidance, and crits/potency for heals/wards/life taps/etc. I just don't think it's right for other fighters to have higher survivability than a guard in any situation if the only thing guards are supposed to be better at is survivability.</p><p>It's not going to happen though. Just a wish.</p>

[Shasroh]

<p>Personally I don't feel Guardians are as bad off as you make us sound.  Before you start saying im just some SK coming to troll your post, I have played my guard since beta and launch of eq2, been there for LU13, and when we were kings of tanking in KOS, EOF, ROK.  Tanks have balanced out much more since those days any fighter class should be viable to tank in MOST situations.  I tend to not post often simply because there isn't much point.  With that said...</p><p>We could use slight tweaking in the agro department.  Something Atan (atleast i think it was you) mentioned in another thread hits it pretty well.  Our issues are as we get more geared out, we are getting hit less often so our reactive hate procs aren't helping as much.  Possibilities to look at would be giving us something on attack for an extra hate proc as part of hold the line.  Possibly a lower proc rate than 50%, something more like 25%.  Changing that might even be to much.  Devs have to be careful not to make us OP.  </p><p>I have very few issues with agro in both raids and heroic content.  In either my DPS gear or my Tanking gear.  Class make up in the instances doesn't matter, tend not to have hate gain buffs or hate transfers in a lot of my groups, as make up doesn't matter to me in a heroic zone, most of them are pretty easy anyhow.  Tend to have mostly casters in the group. Group moderate makes holding agro most of the time pretty easy.  The extra hate/damage proc from a wardens instinct buff helps a bit, and if I am grouped with a SK in a heroic zone that tends to give the slight increase that keeps him from ever ripping agro unless I pull a room.</p><p>All in all the class needs a couple small tweaks to our own personal agro generation.  But nothing major, like a lot like to make it seem, we are far from a broken class, just a bit harder to play than the others.  </p>

[Eddster2]

<p>Maybe your just trying to go too defensive.</p><p>I find that one of the benefits of being a raid MT guard is that i can drop some of the defensive gear/stance for offensive stuff and still be a good tank.   I'm 3rd on our parse in T9 raids, behind only the ranger and assassin... so i have no problems holding hate off of either our OT SK or pally.</p><p>If you think about it... if your temporary buffs are becoming useless as you near the mit cap... you can drop defensive stance and reach the cap with just the temporary buffs, and do a bit more dps.</p>

[Pikard]

<p>I leveled my guard to 90 in hopes that the new changes would help him hold agro.... nope!</p><p>My guard has now become my new Harvest guy, about all he suited to do!</p><p>SoE devs, get your heads outa your *** and fix guards! You've left this problem go waaay too long, this was a mistake you made and you failed to correct. Get it fixed!!!!</p><p>Greg</p>

[arksun]

<p><cite>Eddster2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Maybe your just trying to go too defensive.</p><p>I find that one of the benefits of being a raid MT guard is that i can drop some of the defensive gear/stance for offensive stuff and still be a good tank.   I'm 3rd on our parse in T9 raids, behind only the ranger and assassin... so i have no problems holding hate off of either our OT SK or pally.</p><p>If you think about it... if your temporary buffs are becoming useless as you near the mit cap... you can drop defensive stance and reach the cap with just the temporary buffs, and do a bit more dps.</p></blockquote><p>Not bashing you at all, but you should not be 3rd on your parse for a "raiding" guild.</p>

[Raahl]

<p>Tanking all depends upon keeping an holding aggro.  Which Guardians could use a little love from the developers on.</p>

[VikingGamer]

<p>Guardians are sacrificing both dps and aggro for a bit better survivablity. That is broken, they should only have to sacrifice dps in exchange for survivablity not both. If you don't have aggro, you are not the tank. If you are producing high dps then your survivablity should suffer. The other tanks produce enough dps to pull the aggro from a guardian but don't have to worry about getting 1 shot by the boss because they still have great survivably.</p><p>Guardians may have better survivablity but it does them no good if they are not getting hit and they wont get hit if they don't produce enough aggro. You also only need as much survivablity as a given fight calls for. If you can take a 3k hit then it doesnt matter if the boss hits for 1k or 2k, everything above that is wasted. But being able to pump up the aggro means everyone else can pump up the dps and the fight can be finished faster. So if you only need a 'zerk or crusaders survivability for a fight why bother bringing a guard who is only going to slow you down.</p><p>Because of this I would think it would be great to see some kind of ability that would allow guards at least or perhaps all tanks in general to almost arbitrarily convert survivablity into dps and aggro or at least just aggro. Allow the tank to allow the dps to pump it up if the extra survivablity is not needed.</p><p>But at the end of the day. If you don't have aggro, you are not the tank.</p><p>In the interest of full disclosure, I play a paladin.</p>

[dr4gonUK]

<p>I disagree with the op.</p>

[Landiin]

<p>If they give guards equal or close AE threat or threat in general as the other plate tanks they will complain that we have better survivability and shouldn't have the hate they have. But what some can not or refuse to grasp is they have better serviceability then guard vs multiple targets hands down. The only advantage guards have vs any of the other plate tanks is being hit by one mob. Any other aspect of the game the guard does not have the advantage. </p>

[Shorcon]

<p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they give guards equal or close AE threat or threat in general as the other plate tanks they will complain that we have better survivability and shouldn't have the hate they have. But what some can not or refuse to grasp is they have better serviceability then guard vs multiple targets hands down. The only advantage guards have vs any of the other plate tanks is being hit by one mob. Any other aspect of the game the guard does not have the advantage. </p></blockquote><p>We dont have an advantage against crusader zerk in single target anymore. Simple fact. Once again I have tested this theory as it seems important to .... well ........ my game play.  In raid with any of the aforementioned with just sustain on tanks and no dps for the testing purpose all 3 of the above could pull agro at will long after all my cooldowns and snaps were spent. On single target also. They out agro us single target also.</p><p>I am 220 aa and only missing buckler hate and sf endline in warrior tree. I have all other surv/agro aa possible. I hear many posting with no fact. You as a guardian MT are not testing your OT's and seeing what happens when you both go all out. You are not testing what happens with lower geared tanks in a MT group to see who holds better agro. I simply lose the mob after every snap to either dps or cooldown. We are in a very very poor state atm. I can't believe a guardian is actualy on here saying differently. Stop saying we are fine just because you have good OT's that know how NOT to pull agro which in the current state is were skill is implamented with crusader/zerk classes. They MT with easy button. OT is difficult for them as they have a hard time not pulling the mobs.</p><p>Offensive stance? Wow. Get off easy mode.</p>

[Landiin]

<p><cite>Shorcon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If they give guards equal or close AE threat or threat in general as the other plate tanks they will complain that we have better survivability and shouldn't have the hate they have. But what some can not or refuse to grasp is they have better serviceability then guard vs multiple targets hands down. The only advantage guards have vs any of the other plate tanks is being hit by one mob. Any other aspect of the game the guard does not have the advantage. </p></blockquote><p>We dont have an advantage against crusader zerk in single target anymore. Simple fact. Once again I have tested this theory as it seems important to .... well ........ my game play.  In raid with any of the aforementioned with just sustain on tanks and no dps for the testing purpose all 3 of the above could pull agro at will long after all my cooldowns and snaps were spent. On single target also. They out agro us single target also.</p><p>I am 220 aa and only missing buckler hate and sf endline in warrior tree. I have all other surv/agro aa possible. I hear many posting with no fact. You as a guardian MT are not testing your OT's and seeing what happens when you both go all out. You are not testing what happens with lower geared tanks in a MT group to see who holds better agro. I simply lose the mob after every snap to either dps or cooldown. We are in a very very poor state atm. I can't believe a guardian is actualy on here saying differently. Stop saying we are fine just because you have good OT's that know how NOT to pull agro which in the current state is were skill is implamented with crusader/zerk classes. They MT with easy button. OT is difficult for them as they have a hard time not pulling the mobs.</p><p>Offensive stance? Wow. Get off easy mode.</p></blockquote><p>Oh I agree with you 100 %. When I said advantage  vs a single mob I ment one mob hitting the guard, nothing else, not agro or util. Just the simple fact that guards can withstand a harder single hit is the only advantage a guard has. Even at that the advantageous is not that big at all. I see no reason why guards can't have some threat utilities to give guards as much hate as the other plate tanks.</p>

[Eddster2]

<p>Digg, re your reply -  i agree with you entirely... however i'm curious, when your parsing 40k+ as you've posted on another website, are you low down on the guild's parses?</p><p>EDIT:  also not bashing you either <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Macross_JR]

<p><cite>Eddster2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Digg, re your reply -  i agree with you entirely... however i'm curious, when your parsing 40k+ as you've posted on another website, are you low down on the guild's parses?</p><p>EDIT:  also not bashing you either <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Honestly if he was parsing 40k+ the real dps was probably pushing 65-80k.  They have some real beasts.</p>

[Shorcon]

<p>Did you know there are less than 1k guardians at cap lvl? Did you know there are 2.2k Shadowknights at cap lvl? Did you know the SK is the most played class in the game? Did you know guardian only comes in 2nd least to the monk? Hrm. The hybrid isnt taking over? The Guardian is just fine?</p>

[woolf2k]

<p><cite>Shorcon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Did you know there are less than 1k guardians at cap lvl? Did you know there are 2.2k Shadowknights at cap lvl? Did you know the SK is the most played class in the game? Did you know guardian only comes in 2nd least to the monk? Hrm. The hybrid isnt taking over? The Guardian is just fine?</p></blockquote><p>that's because guardians have been bred for raids...one gaurdian one raid.... so ofcourse they wouldn't be that many....</p><p>the rest of the time any other tank will do for OT in raids. in group dungoens and soloing like pallies, sks and bezerkers... </p><p>so ofcourse people will chose those over the guardian...</p>

[Rahatmattata]

<p>Why would 1 class out of 24 be designed just for 1 spot in a raid? Is being a main tank in raids so super awesome sauce a class should sacrifice in every possible way to get a raid slot? If so, other tanks shouldn't even be viable. Not only are other tanks perfectly viable to MT raids, they can OT much better, do enough dps to not be a total waste of a slot if they aren't tanking, and they are actually better at MT once the raid gears up a bit. A non-tanking guard is like... the last class you would want in a raid to fill an empty slot. Is being a main tank somehow more important than being a healer or OT, or coercer to keep your healers with mana?</p><p>What other classes are built for raiding and suck at every other aspect of EQ2 compared to other classes that perfrom the same roll? Personally, I think <em>guardians were built for raiding</em> is BS. The only class in worse shape than guardians IMO is ranger, but at least a ranger is fun to play even if they are mediocre compared to assassin and sorcerer.</p>

[Shorcon]

<p><cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why would 1 class out of 24 be designed just for 1 spot in a raid? Is being a main tank in raids so super awesome sauce a class should sacrifice in every possible way to get a raid slot? If so, other tanks shouldn't even be viable. Not only are other tanks perfectly viable to MT raids, they can OT much better, do enough dps to not be a total waste of a slot if they aren't tanking, and they are actually better at MT once the raid gears up a bit. A non-tanking guard is like... the last class you would want in a raid to fill an empty slot. Is being a main tank somehow more important than being a healer or OT, or coercer to keep your healers with mana?</p><p>What other classes are built for raiding and suck at every other aspect of EQ2 compared to other classes that perfrom the same roll? Personally, I think <em>guardians were built for raiding</em> is BS. The only class in worse shape than guardians IMO is ranger, but at least a ranger is fun to play even if they are mediocre compared to assassin and sorcerer.</p></blockquote><p>Huh?</p><p>Ok. First off guardian/zerk are puretanks. They were designed to front run raids. This is why crusaders were only allowed bucklers in the begining. That is why raid gear was labeled guardian/zerk back then. They were designed to support the tank. They were designed to as you mentioned not waste space in a raid as they could dps somewhat. There was little use of them back then so I dont mind that they have been brought up to the pure tank spread. Thats fine. My problem is soe has gone way overboard with the SK in particular and has done nothing to compensate the guardian. The SK is, as anyone with any skill will tell you, easy button tanking. It's simply hard to loose agro with them. You would actualy need more skill to loose agro on a mob than you would to hold agro. Gaurdians have to chase loose mobs and target them. SK's do not. Guardians have to burn snaps to get agro back on a constant. SK's do not. Guardians run out of snaps and then are left with poooooooor dps to maintain agro. SK's are able to hold agro on the pull with instant dps on the mobs and maintain that agro after their cooldowns have run off which isn't very often.</p><p>The whole point to this is that with all the posting going on from actualy people who play or have played guardians soe should look into them and fix them.</p>

[Shorcon]

<p><cite>Jaine@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Shorcon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Did you know there are less than 1k guardians at cap lvl? Did you know there are 2.2k Shadowknights at cap lvl? Did you know the SK is the most played class in the game? Did you know guardian only comes in 2nd least to the monk? Hrm. The hybrid isnt taking over? The Guardian is just fine?</p></blockquote><p>that's because guardians have been bred for raids...one gaurdian one raid.... so ofcourse they wouldn't be that many....</p><p>the rest of the time any other tank will do for OT in raids. in group dungoens and soloing like pallies, sks and bezerkers... </p><p>so ofcourse people will chose those over the guardian...</p></blockquote><p>Wrong. Dead wrong. Guardians used to lead the population cap. Shhhhhh.</p><p>Edited to repeat........ SK is the most played class atm. They are bred for raid, grp, heal, dps, taunt, mit, and everything else you could throw in there.</p><p>Edited again to add...... If we were designed just for raid shouldnt we be the best at it? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Shorcon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Guardians are fine other then reducing a small amount of shadowknights dps while tanking. All tank classes are more balanced then they have EVER been. Jacking up guardian agro so that they hold aoe agro like a shadowknight is broken.</p></blockquote><p>This would be an SK telling me that a guardian is fine the way it is. Never heard an SK say this before. Stop.</p></blockquote><p>I am a bruiser and tanks are relatively balanced. This is the first expansion where all 3 archtypes are wanted on raids and the first expansion where every fighter class is useful on raids. Its obvious you want the status quo back in EOF where guard was the best tank and guard was the best offtank. </p><p>Guard asking for shadowknight aoe agro is broken. Period. The only issue right now is shadowknights should not be putting up the dps they do in defensive. They should be nerfed slightly so their dps while in defensive is equivilant or slightly less then a zerker (who ironically tanks in offensive).</p>