Look, can someone please give me good feedback on my guardian ideas?

[Redorio]

<DIV>Seems everyone is too busy ranting, flaming with Gaige, or demanding to be what would become the best and only tank again <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) Self Damage shield, ups DPs, adds some aggro. Good RPG feel IMHO, armour growing spikes. This only works when a guardian is of course tanking. Thus a 2nd guardian in group wouldn't get much use of this to bost DPs. So this would need to be considered in the damage boost Guardians offence stances have?</DIV> <DIV>-Set this damage shield to be piercing, make rare versions to be slashing?</DIV> <DIV>-Should this be seperate buff, or in-built with the guardian's defence buffs?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Self regenerating ward, a small ward, not more than 2 hp level, say betwen 1 and 2hp depending on quality of the ability App1 to Master. </DIV> <DIV>-Now, this would reduce Guardians damage from typical xp and Solo mobs, but, unlike percentage based mitigation, this number is a constant, and would be faced against xp mobs of the correct tier, thus devs can balance it well and doesn't throw the game out of whack so much as % based can, i.e. trivializing raid encounters or making guardians the only tank you'd want. it would make guardians good tanks when you have less healing, it will let healer types do some more DPs. it gives guardians a clear advantage in tanking, but not a huge one. Brawlers still out DPs them and so forth.</DIV> <DIV>-A self casting/regenerating ward would add small aggro boost to the guardian.</DIV> <DIV>-Would this interfere with shaman wards?</DIV> <DIV>-If a ward is nto suitable, would regeneration work? I think a ward is the best idea though.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3) Make the abilities which currenlty intercept damage to a group mate either stun the enemy, or add a short term ward to the victim. Say guardians have a ward with 15 min reuse, with duration of 15 seconds, let it do appreciably good protection. Goal isn't to out do shamans but to provide the safety net guardians should have: <EM>Guardians</EM>. Or perhaps let guardians have a reactive stun buff. The idea is to buy time for the guardian to gain aggro and save a group mate.</DIV> <DIV>-Current interception abilities simply mean the guaridan takes massive unmitigated damage and likely dies.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sorry to sort of repost this though I added a bit, but folk are so desperate, they are not seeign the wood for the trees...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-Crusaders and brawlers HAVE to be attractive tanks to a group, so should guardians. Scouts are the melee folk who do damage but DON'T tank.</DIV> <DIV>-Being a good tank does not mean guardians should only rely on mitigation of armour..think outside the box!</DIV> <DIV>-Damage does not have to just just mean swinging a weapon for a guardian. Damage shields are ideal weapons for the class <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV>-Quit worrying about small percentages of mitigation, big frikkin' deal! Get creative, get attractive to groups.</DIV> <DIV>-guardians are not just dumb damage sponges, as a conjuror I have a pet who can do that, guardian characters are more than just an NPC. fed up playing with some guaridans who are useless because that's all they do: <EM>"Doh! Hit me, mob!",</EM><FONT color=#ff0000> positioning, pulling and other skills make a good tank, not just how little damage they take.</FONT></DIV> <DIV>-Guardians were over powered before LU13, DEAL WITH IT! You are not going back to be grossly overpowered and out DPSing mages and scouts.</DIV> <DIV>-New tiers/expansions make previous "Uber" gear not so good, tough.  You've had months of use of T5 fabled, time for T6 fabled. If new expansions gear was no upgrade, woudl kinda make the expansion not so useful, would it...common sense...though bugs and fixes are probably in order.</DIV>

[sylvo]

<div></div>I think they are good ideas for utility skills and would probably add some "flavour". 1. Sure a good idea, doesn't add to multiple guardians being desirable but still would add a bit more when tanking, would also be an easy spell to scale from app1 to Master. 2. Same sort of thing applies here good potential use and easy to scale. Have to make sure it doesn't clash with shaman wards like you said (and also the maddening defense line - its bad enough this doesn't work with shamans if we had to choose ward or MD that would be a PITA). 3.I like the idea of switching the protection skills to something more useful like a block and a stun - give it limited procs like a reactive and a reasonable recast timer. I.e. Like tower of stone but without less harsher durability component and a stun proc. Single and group versions : Maintained buff Unlimited duration 5 minute recast (would stop abuse against raid targets) When target gets hit - shield absorbs 90-100% of the damage for (x) hits. (maybe vary it based upon shield type -kite,tower etc.)                                      attacker is stunned for 3 seconds (does not work on epic targets). Single and group versions should stack to stop peelers blowing your procs. Perhaps add a durability reduction such as 2% per hit absorbed, this would allow for reasonable use during an exp session but would still give some penalty Anyway like I said I think in principle they are a good basis for ideas. My only niggle would be how some of the ideas don't exactly feel in keeping with the "ethos" of a Guardian but like I said its a niggle and the "ethos" of a Guardian seems pretty open for debate atm as everyone seems to have different ideas of what the "new" Guardian should be. <div></div><p>Message Edited by sylvore on <span class=date_text>10-21-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:08 PM</span>

[Timzil]

More DPS to put us on par with everyone else. Don't need heals, that's the healers job. Don't need rescues, that's my job already and I do it just fine without needing to waste a skill line for it. More outside encounter AE taunt/high damage skills, or at least one taunt since that's our described area of expertise/flavor/lore and we currently have zero skills for it.

[Storm_Runner]

<P>I agree with you.  I too am tired of the constant infighting and flame wars with other classes.  My Guardian is only level 37 (was 33 when the revamp went live).  I've been on three raids in all those levels...2 for heritage quests and one as a guild task.  I also tend to solo about 60-65% of the time.  I never experienced the buff stacking that made Guardians invincible on raids (although my understanding is that it would have also worked almost as well on other fighter classes) but if it really trivialized encounters then it needed to go away.  I had a few ideas on giving Guardians some flavor as well as class defining abilities that were similar to yours.</P> <P>1.  Give us a reason to use a tower shield over a kite shield by giving tower shields a % chance to resist stuns.  Since the revamp I tend to get stunned quite a bit especially if I'm MT and one of a group of mobs gets around behind me.</P> <P>2.  Help us solo and off tank better by giving us an attack speed increase (but only while in our offensive stance).</P> <P>3.  Make our intercept lines actually worth using by taking the damage (or a large % of it) we take and throwing it back at the mob that's attacking our groupmate.  Sort of like a damage shield (EQ2 is my first MMORPG so I didn't know it was called a damage shield when I first proposed it).  This would also serve to increase our dps while being MT.  Make it so that the reflected damage generates hate towards us the way a ward or heal generates hate towards the caster.  That would act like a built in taunt and bring the mob back to us or at least make it easier to taunt the mob off of that nuke happy caster.</P> <P>I think that those ideas and yours would help us define ourselves without adding the extra mitigation that so many are screaming for especially since SOE is not likely to give us that mitigation.</P> <P>Balyn - 37 Guardian on Highkeep </P>

[JNewby]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Storm_Runner wrote:<BR> <P>I agree with you.  I too am tired of the constant infighting and flame wars with other classes.  My Guardian is only level 37 (was 33 when the revamp went live).  I've been on three raids in all those levels...2 for heritage quests and one as a guild task.  I also tend to solo about 60-65% of the time.  I never experienced the buff stacking that made Guardians invincible on raids (although my understanding is that it would have also worked almost as well on other fighter classes) but if it really trivialized encounters then it needed to go away.  I had a few ideas on giving Guardians some flavor as well as class defining abilities that were similar to yours.</P> <P>1.  Give us a reason to use a tower shield over a kite shield by giving tower shields a % chance to resist stuns.  Since the revamp I tend to get stunned quite a bit especially if I'm MT and one of a group of mobs gets around behind me.</P> <P>2.  Help us solo and off tank better by giving us an attack speed increase (but only while in our offensive stance).</P> <P>3.  Make our intercept lines actually worth using by taking the damage (or a large % of it) we take and throwing it back at the mob that's attacking our groupmate.  Sort of like a damage shield (EQ2 is my first MMORPG so I didn't know it was called a damage shield when I first proposed it).  This would also serve to increase our dps while being MT.  Make it so that the reflected damage generates hate towards us the way a ward or heal generates hate towards the caster.  That would act like a built in taunt and bring the mob back to us or at least make it easier to taunt the mob off of that nuke happy caster.</P> <P>I think that those ideas and yours would help us define ourselves without adding the extra mitigation that so many are screaming for especially since SOE is not likely to give us that mitigation.</P> <P>Balyn - 37 Guardian on Highkeep </P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>1.. we dont need the mitigation... with the new upgrade to cobalt armor in a normal exp group I get to about 3.5k in a raid group 4k should be no problem..</P> <P>2. yeah tower shields need to be fixed.. atm I am using a t6 fabled kite shield.. poor pallies in the guild</P> <P>3. shields in general need to be fixed</P> <P>4. mobs need to hit much much harder as to nessitate a tank... my 51 dirge can tank mobs just fine in a trio.. sometiems loses aggro but just seems to easy.. had a 56 assasain tank 59^^^ yesterday</P> <P>5. defense whould do soemthing again.. that was the guardian role... brawlers get everything under the sun crusaders get heals and dmg spells evac and such depending on class... we got +17 to defense... which made us tank better... now it gives us like 3% avoidance</P> <P>yeah that should be about right</P> <P><BR> </P>

[Raahl]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JNewby wrote:<BR><BR> <P>1.. we dont need the mitigation... with the new upgrade to cobalt armor in a normal exp group I get to about 3.5k in a raid group 4k should be no problem..</P> <P></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>I have to disagree with you there.  The cobalt armor changes only affect 50+ guardians.  Sub 50 guardians are in need of a little more mitigation.  Shield mitigation would be the perfect solution to this.</DIV>

[Storm_Runner]

<P></P> <HR> Raahl wrote <DIV>I have to disagree with you there.  The cobalt armor changes only affect 50+ guardians.  Sub 50 guardians are in need of a little more mitigation.  Shield mitigation would be the perfect solution to this.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I have to agree with you there.  I'm only 37 and am wearing half pristine forged feyiron and half basic quested stuff (I don't remember if that would make it legendary or treasured). </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also...Why are Guardians the only member of the fighter tree without some form of ward/heal/hp regen?  As I said earlier I tend to solo about 60-65% of the game so that would be very helpful to me.  In a group I can count on the healer and rest of the group to support me and help keep me standing.  When I'm soloing the only one I can count on is me and as it stands I tend to spend a goodly amount of time running if things go bad or if I get an add (of any kind).  It's not uncommon in Zek to see my armor clad butt running across the zone with my arms in the air like a 7 foot tall barbarian girly man.  Also a ward/heal/hp regen would help cut down on the downtime between fights since I almost always have to wait for my health and power to regen (unless I'm fighting greens with 2 or 3 down arrows).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Balyn - 37 Guardian on Highkeep</DIV>

[NighthawkX]

<P>1. agree a damage shield would be reasonable and it should stack with any other damage shield except the same line, think of it like someone said spiked armor.  It would deffinately help you solo which is one of your weaker areas compared to other fighter classes, but wouldn't be overpowering in a group setting.  Maybe add it to the hold the line series or really any of your self buff series.  It would be self only though.</P> <P>2. Tower of stone should not damage the shield someone should not be expected to carry around a bunch of extra shields to be able to use it.</P> <P>3. Protection line needs to use your mitigation not the targets, and the addition of a chance to stun targets that are hiting the target of the spell sounds good.  It also should not increase group damage taken.  Should be more like 90% to caster 10% to target.</P> <P>4. I keep hearing about the group +defense buff, its actually lot better than you give it credit, think you are only looking at what it adds to yourself and may be hitting a defense cap.  Look at what it adds to other group members like the mages and leather wearers its a lot more than 3% avoidance to them and yes even doing your job they will get hit aoe traumas are alot more abundent now from mobs along with adds etc, preventing your healer getting stuned because they avoided an aoe stun can be a lifesaver.</P> <P>5. Not sure if hip on the ward thing, your benefit is to take less damage to begin with to make up for not being able to heal it back. Ie you only took 80 damage no heal while paladin took 100 damage with ability to heal 20 back.  And in reality that is happening as they do take more damage but there wards and heals offset it.</P> <P>The fixes above in my oppinion would go along way and are in the spirit of the class to help balance them without makeing them overpowered.</P> <P>Good post by the Op and this is from someone who's only tank is a monk, but wants to see all classes desired and have a function.</P>

[JNewby]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Raahl wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JNewby wrote:<BR><BR> <P>1.. we dont need the mitigation... with the new upgrade to cobalt armor in a normal exp group I get to about 3.5k in a raid group 4k should be no problem..</P> <P></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>I have to disagree with you there.  The cobalt armor changes only affect 50+ guardians.  Sub 50 guardians are in need of a little more mitigation.  Shield mitigation would be the perfect solution to this.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>get ebon... there is to much mit as there is.. it will make advancing past cobalt pointless since their is a cap... besides shields give avoidance whichi is much more useful</P> <P> </P>

[JNewby]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> NighthawkX wrote:<BR> <P>1. agree a damage shield would be reasonable and it should stack with any other damage shield except the same line, think of it like someone said spiked armor.  It would deffinately help you solo which is one of your weaker areas compared to other fighter classes, but wouldn't be overpowering in a group setting.  Maybe add it to the hold the line series or really any of your self buff series.  It would be self only though.</P> <P>2. Tower of stone should not damage the shield someone should not be expected to carry around a bunch of extra shields to be able to use it.</P> <P>3. Protection line needs to use your mitigation not the targets, and the addition of a chance to stun targets that are hiting the target of the spell sounds good.  It also should not increase group damage taken.  Should be more like 90% to caster 10% to target.</P> <P>4. I keep hearing about the group +defense buff, its actually lot better than you give it credit, think you are only looking at what it adds to yourself and may be hitting a defense cap.  Look at what it adds to other group members like the mages and leather wearers its a lot more than 3% avoidance to them and yes even doing your job they will get hit aoe traumas are alot more abundent now from mobs along with adds etc, preventing your healer getting stuned because they avoided an aoe stun can be a lifesaver.</P> <P>5. Not sure if hip on the ward thing, your benefit is to take less damage to begin with to make up for not being able to heal it back. Ie you only took 80 damage no heal while paladin took 100 damage with ability to heal 20 back.  And in reality that is happening as they do take more damage but there wards and heals offset it.</P> <P>The fixes above in my oppinion would go along way and are in the spirit of the class to help balance them without makeing them overpowered.</P> <P>Good post by the Op and this is from someone who's only tank is a monk, but wants to see all classes desired and have a function.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>about the defense I would rathr have it be +1 more to def and be a self only buff... I am taking the hits not the group.. they dont need it... any AOE might hurt them but not enough to matter with this buff on them... and it only does give like 3% avoidance... it shoudl do much more then taht</P> <P> </P>

[NighthawkX]

<P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JNewby wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Raahl wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> JNewby wrote:<BR><BR> <P>1.. we dont need the mitigation... with the new upgrade to cobalt armor in a normal exp group I get to about 3.5k in a raid group 4k should be no problem..</P> <P></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>I have to disagree with you there.  The cobalt armor changes only affect 50+ guardians.  Sub 50 guardians are in need of a little more mitigation.  Shield mitigation would be the perfect solution to this.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>get ebon... there is to much mit as there is.. it will make advancing past cobalt pointless since their is a cap... besides shields give avoidance whichi is much more useful</P> <P> </P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Adding 5% mitigation to you will be more valuable than adding 5% avoidance, over the long haul because you already have more mitigation it comes out to a bigger advantage over time damage wise, and also will not have the streakiness of the avoidance. Now obviously if you are hitting a cap so that your not actually gaining more mitigation than yes the avoidance is better.  Also remember thats against a white no arrow con, going over 80% display would give you more mitigation against higher level creatures which if you are at that level you probably are fighting higher level creatures.</P> <P>Avoidance compared in equal amounts is not better than mitigation.</P>

[NighthawkX]

<P>I have a troubador with a +defense skill I have checked it out many a time it is a lot more than 3% to the rest of your group the lighter there armor the more avoidance it adds per point.  And when I have a character grouped with a guardian I sure as heck appreciate the extra health, mitigation, avoidance that they are giving me.  You may not value it, but I do your guarding your group not just yourself.  I can tell you I get nailed quite often on my scout by aoe's parry them, avoid them etc helps out a lot.  Assault variants is the most common but there are others.  Heck +11.5 defence on a level 48 not wearing armor at all added 16%  avoidance granted not likely to have someone without any armor on.  Your not takeing all the hits no matter how perfect you play it unless you are soloing.</P> <P>Back to original poster some nice ideas, keep the positives out there. As far as the ward one not sure why just doesn't feel right in my oppinion, seems to much like magic and thats more a crusader I guess.</P> <p>Message Edited by NighthawkX on <span class=date_text>10-21-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:40 PM</span>

[a6eaq]

<P>I am not too much in favor of damage shields or self healing, but give us our tower shields back!  That for a starter.  That would definetly give Guards/Zerkers a defensive advantage.  I put Zerkers in there since they were made able to use them as well.  The shield was originally meant to set us apart, but has been made useless to stop crusaders from feeling inadequate with kite shields.</P> <P>Another idea I have would be to redesign our bloodlines ability and make it something worth having.  I mean blowing up our heart hmmm, I think not.  Monks get an ability that lets them hit for like 6K damage.  I am 100% sure about all the specifics, but it would be nice to give us another 1 shot massive damage ability or an ability that stuns our targets for more than 3 seconds when we bash the mob over the head with a huge tower shield.  That would help us tank/solo casting mobs better.</P> <P>I would also like to see a DPS increase while in offensive stance.  After all, when we are going offensive, why not.</P>