questionable guardian skills

[SirDra]

<DIV>Allay & Never Surrender - dont seem to increase anyones avodiance</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Alot of the added Defence and Parry buffs dont stack </DIV> <DIV>     example - fortified stance + return to battle + call of protection and other skills that have added defence in the description and are on seperate timers but dont stack</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Despret Rush - Max AOE targets 6? is it suppose to be a group buff now?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Please talk about these skills thanks</DIV> <P><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </P> <P><SPAN class=time_text></SPAN> </P><p>Message Edited by SirDrake on <span class=date_text>06-06-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:29 AM</span>

[ThramFalc]

<P>Allay <EM><STRONG>or</STRONG></EM> Never Surrender do work in some way... I don't know which is doing it but maybe they both do.  When I use them, my target will get messages saying the mob tried to attack them but<EM> </EM><STRONG>I </STRONG>parried or <STRONG>I </STRONG>blocked.  Like many of our arts the description is just misleading.  It doesn't effect the number "avoidance" (which didnt exist when this description was written), but it does block some additional attacks.</P> <P>The stacking issue has been discussed to death.  We get enough skill bonuses even without them stacking, but I agree its lame to give a combat art or spell an effect that will never be used.  It shows a lack of understanding and foresight on the part of the devs.  I doubt these skills will get altered since there are bigger issues, but I guess it could be part of the spell and combat revamp... we can hope.  SOE really needs to examine how they handle skill buffs.  If they continue to scale as they currently do, level 70 mobs won't be a challenge after Desert of Flames.  Skill buffs should not scale.  They represent the level of the character.  +15 in a skill is 3 more levels whether the character is 1 or 100.  Its not like other buffs that lose effectiveness as we level and thus need to be scaled and upgraded.  This is why us guardians can solo higher and higher con group mobs as we level.  At level 20 i could solo green group mobs of the lowest level and at level 50 I can solo a high con level 49 blue with ease.  If my skill buffs didnt scale, i would have always been able to solo that green group mob and I wouldn't gain or lose anything as I level.  The more a guardian levels, the more unbalanced we get.  How the numbers weren't crunched on this even before beta confounds me.  Its very apparent.</P> <P>Then again, skills could be revamped entirely and become more like attributes, in which case scaling and stacking skill buffs wouldn't be so bad.  I'm just gonna wait and see what they come up with.  It will tell a lot about the future of the game and what the intentions of the developers are (band-aid or long term sustainability).</P>

[Lyrus]

Allay, Never Surrender and Vigilance, while questionable, do work, although not in the most apparent way, infact it's very hard to spot the avoidance making a difference at all. It's not actually an increase in the avoidance % on the character, it's actually a percentage chance that you will parry an attack that the person the attack was destined for was guarenteed to receive. The only way that I've been actually able to verify this,  was to look up the phrase that I successfully parried an attack for someone, put that into my parser and set an audible cue to fire off every time that the phrase was logged. All in all, the average was about 2 attacks parried per fight. I haven't attempted to test in a raid situation, but if anyone has any experience with it in a raid setting, fill us in here.  I'd also suggest putting in a /feedback requesting the way that our "defining class skills" operate, as of right now, they're hardly used due to being severely detrimental (try using anything from the sentinal line), or aren't cut and dry , like the never surrender line which you have to put forth an effort to even see if it's working at all. Enough feedback with some useful ideas in a respectful tone could actually bring about change. Lyrus Permafrost <div></div>

[Shizzirri]

Me and another guard we're playing around with never surrendur and allay a while back thinking we could max avoidance with them stacked on another guardian, but the bonuses we're minimal from his perspective with both of those buffs being adept 1.   I took these off my bar a while back I rarely use them anymore unless there's a wizard or a warlock in my group that constantly pulls aggro but I haven't had that problem in quite some time.