PVP Server Guardians

[Izzypop]

<div align="center"><font size="6">  Rule #1 There's no crying in baseball!</font></div>    When in doubt refer back to rule #1 <span>:smileytongue:</span>  My current red server guaridan is 68 almost 69.  I would be 70 by now if I didn't start off with a brigand.  I'm not raid geared, but am in full legendary.  I harvest, solo doing wirts and quests, duo, do small groups, do full groups both in pvp and pve so my experinces are well rounded.  I also think playing a scout gave me a valueable point of view from a scout's point of view.  Here is my philosophy of red server guardians and my experiances.  Rule #1 There's no crying in baseball!  Life is rough on a red server there is a wonderfull thread called "welcome to the jungle" about red server life.  Orange con players 8 levels higher than you will track you down to start afight.  If you go out alone groups of orange cons will hunt you.  Once you begin to xp in sinking sands in your late 40's then level 70's will hunt you down in unlimited pvp range zones.  When grouped you group will fall victem to many lobsided fights as gank squads that out level your group hunt you down.  You can't be to high strung or worried about getting killed especially when solo.  A guardian's roll in pvp.  Keep your groupmates alive pure and simple.  We are not dps.  Zerkers, Sk's, Monks, Bralwers,  and I think even pallies (but not possitive on the pally part) all out dps us in PVP  We are bottom of the dps barrel.   We are however the hardest class to kill, and we have the best PVP taunts and intercepts.  Now the trick is to work with what we have.  For PvP gear up as defensive as possible.  Mitigation and ressissts are #1 everything else including stats are 2ndary.  Stripping your stats for maxed out ressists makes our poor dps even worse and well this just makes a hopeless situation of going 1 on 1 with a zerker, bruiser, or monk even more hopeless.  Being a proper pvp tank takes a lot of personal sacrafice.  What good does a bruiser/monk's group pvp taunt do if they get 1 shoted by an ice nova or fusion?  Freeport Gaurdians need all the cold/heat ressists they could get, and Quenies need Disease, Disease, and more Disease ressists.<div align="center"><font size="4">  Group PVP combat.  </font></div>    My personal philosophy: If your the 1st in your group to die you did your job right.  You can't win every fight especially when the other group has levels on you.  My job as a guardian is to keep the healer and squishies alive.  If anybody dies before me I have failed as a guardian, if I die 1st I did my job right.  If I stay alive my healer is doing thier job right, if we win the fight my groups dps did their job right.  My only concern in a pvp fight is keeping 5 other people alive, and try to not get squished myself ie tower of stone, and other short term buffs.  60 seconds is an eternity in PvP if you can buy your group that much time and they can't drop the other side they are either doing something wrong or are just plain out classed/leveled.   The outcome of a 6 on 6 group pvp battle is almost always decided in the 1st 30 seconds of the fight.  The precious 1st minute is life and death of your group.    The mind of a PvP DPS class.  There are 2 types of thought here what they should do in PvP combat.        A) Kill the healer 1st  This is what most people do.  As soon as someone figures out who the healer is everybody will try to target them and splatter the healer.  Every PvP tank has to deal with 4 dps attempting to splatter their healer on a routine basis.       B) Kill the cloth class 1st.  Smash the glass cannons 1st  They are so fragile and drop so fast healers can't save them.  With the other groups dps gone they will not be able to overwhelm your group's healers healing abilities.    That being said Guardians are the best class for keeping people alive.  Very defensive, best PvP taunts in the game, and the best PvP intercepts in the game.  Guardian Sphere absolutely rocks in pvp.  Sentry watch is a 30 second "I win" button once that's popped the other group absolutely can not kill your healer without killing you 1st no matter how hard they try.   Personally I often open up with Tower of stone, Guardian sphere, and Sentry watch and don't even bother taunting until about 20 seconds or so into sentry watch.  Don't underestimate your Sentinel line in PvP players are a lot smarter than mobs and will always try to cut your healer down.  Add on top of that you 2 avoidance buffs onto the healer and they are in much better shape.    Over all I am very happy about how well a guardian can tank in 6 on 6 pvp combat.<div align="center"><font size="4">Solo PvP combat</font></div>  This goes back to rule #1 <span>:smileytongue:  Life is rough, even moreso when your a solo guardian.  Healers and other fighters kick our butt.   We can beat even con scouts but we rarely meet even con scouts (they are usually yellow, orange, or red con when they jump us), when we fight them they almost always get the jump on us (either bent over harvesting a node or engaged to solo mobs as we try to solo) because of tracking and stealth, and even when we start to beat scouts if they decide to run we can't catch them (other classes might [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] about evak, we don't have to because we have no snare <span>:smileysurprised:</span>)  Mages, now mages on the other hand we can terrorize.  If you geared yourself out for resssits to take a pounding from mages in group PvP combat then their roots and nukes are going to be ressistsed like crazy and luck for us mages have less mitigation than a wet paper bag so we can dps our way through them.  If anybody else has questions or input post away.  Over all I'm very happy with the state of our class in the endgame.</span><div></div>

[Oshef]

Awesome post. I like some of the idea's in this thread - I do disagree with the whole spec for only defense thing. I've spec'd more for offense, STA line, and now STR line. More DPS is always a good thing, just because you have good taunts doesn't mean you can't beat on someone a bit while your doing the taunting.Rarely have I been in a position where I haven't been able to take damage well enough (in pvp). Most people get to know your name, and know not to target you, and not to hit you when they have you targetted due to the inflaming defense CA. I've heard some people say that they're strategy is to take down the guardian first because it becomes such a bother to target anyone else - but not many have adopted this tactic. Most - as you say go for the cloth wearers first, and then the healers. Double attack is priceless in PvP - 76% double attack puts you close to the DPS of a zerker - and not that far off Monk DPS. Another great thing about double attack is the bow shots. If you get a double attack, crit bow show you can do up to 2k damage. Awesome for people who try to run from the group with just a little health left.Eh, just my 2cp. I'd love to here views from a bunch of other PvP Guardians, I know that we're a rare breed. <span>:smileyhappy:</span>Oshef70 Guardian on Venekor<div></div>

[Oneira]

I'm only in my 30s as a Guardian, but decided to go with 2 sets of equipment, which seems to work pretty well, the tanking equip that focuses on high high mitigation and resists, and the solo equip that focuses on high mit and a little bit more on the +STR and higher damage side.  I switch them out freely depending on who I'm fighting. I also always start off in def stance to get the big +mit not only against physical but esepcially against heat.  Against a wizzy I will always keep that up.  Against most everyone else I'll wait till I close and then switch to offensive stance. Groupwise I'm always using a shield.  Solowise generally dual-wield weapons and offensive stance for the higher damage. Seems to work for me. <div></div>

[Domiuk]

<P>I have to say although I do not play on a PVP server I cannot see why you would not go all offensive for AAs , for the amount you lose defensively we do gain massive DPS.</P> <P>I do occasionally dual and I can kick out enough DPS to kill most classes very quickly indeed. (I killed a 70 wizard with just 4 arrows, 2 shots on autoattack with double attack) sadly cobalt arrows have been removed <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />    (oh I have hit 3k on a bow pull on several occasions).</P> <P>DPS aa specced guardians can be quite good dps , this fact just needs to be kept fairly quiet <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P> </P> <P> </P><p>Message Edited by Domiuk on <span class=date_text>07-17-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:00 AM</span>

[dparker7]

I dont go offensive because I tank t7 raid content.  The AAs for tanking a raid and tanking a PvP encounter both work well.  You're still in the group to take, not give damage.  As for soloing, I can do quite alright.  I can sit toe to toe with a monk and duel and win some, lose some.

[matinisback]

<DIV> >< make shure the casters dont die plz :smileyvery-happy:</DIV>

[Izzypop]

<div></div><div><blockquote><hr>HollidayStyle wrote:Awesome post. I like some of the idea's in this thread - I do disagree with the whole spec for only defense thing. I've spec'd more for offense, STA line, and now STR line. More DPS is always a good thing, just because you have good taunts doesn't mean you can't beat on someone a bit while your doing the taunting.  <font color="#ff0000">Picking an AA line is the hardest choice of pvp.  I love the STA line but I can't stand bucklers heavy infantry has no buisness with a bucker it's the principle of the entire thing.  We do and can have a lot more dps in pvp than people give us credit for.  That combined with a good defensive base can make us the bane of cloth casters I have many fond memories of squashing orange con wizzies.</font>Rarely have I been in a position where I haven't been able to take damage well enough (in pvp). Most people get to know your name, and know not to target you, and not to hit you when they have you targetted due to the inflaming defense CA. I've heard some people say that they're strategy is to take down the guardian first because it becomes such a bother to target anyone else - but not many have adopted this tactic. <font color="#ff0000">It's so damm hard to get a group to listen to you when you suggest this and I only think this works when you have a good series of mitigation debuffs lined up to do the job</font>Most - as you say go for the cloth wearers first, and then the healers. Double attack is priceless in PvP - 76% double attack puts you close to the DPS of a zerker - and not that far off Monk DPS. Another great thing about double attack is the bow shots. If you get a double attack, crit bow show you can do up to 2k damage. Awesome for people who try to run from the group with just a little health left.Eh, just my 2cp. I'd love to here views from a bunch of other PvP Guardians, I know that we're a rare breed. <span>:smileyhappy:  <font color="#ff0000">We are somewhat of a rare breed, but I know more guardians on my server than openly [Removed for Content] black pro bush republicans</font></span>Oshef70 Guardian on Venekor<div></div><hr></blockquote><font color="#ff0000">Oshef is a good guardian I have fought him often (He's from Qeynos and I"m From freeport on the same server, and we are both guardians) and all his advice is good.  Oshef's group would usually win because they had a slight level advantage and teamspeak/ventrillo  while I was in a pickup group.  </font><div align="left"><font color="#ff00ff">PS Oshef I saw you left Bel VakaI don't know why.It's not really any of my buisnessI don't really care.Except that....Now your old group of friends is deadDead I tell you <span>:smileytongue:</span>I can't wait to catch the other 5 members of your old gank squad nekkie without a GuardianIt's payback time muahahahhahaha</font></div></div><p>Message Edited by Izzypop on <span class=date_text>07-21-2006</span> <span class=time_text>03:42 PM</span>

[FallenFeather]

<div></div><div></div>The shield is to valuable no matter what, you need that extra hit back/interrupt and it realy helps you out. Have tried to max AP str line.- crits with a heavy 2h axe, if the targets are easy they die faster, but if its an even match its realy better with the shield, if you are fighting healers, use the shield to interupt their heals,  have some graphics on so you can actualy see them casting, same with mages, if you see them using long time casting  spells you can be sure it will hurt, so interrup em <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I can recomend it to every guardian out there to max that extra aggro skill in AP str-line, if you are doing pvp, it should be in a group, and for pve raids etc. its a must.To go all defensive might sound awful, but your not the dps, remember? Your the meatshield.So just as for training choices, the best pick is usualy the one designed to your class, as for us; the taunts, even though stuns, high dmg combat arts might look tempting.Stay safe, stay in a group.Haawkings, Guardian on Darathar <span>:robotwink:Edit to say; very nice thread Izzy ! <span>:smileytongue:</span></span><p>Message Edited by FallenFeather on <span class=date_text>07-22-2006</span> <span class=time_text>06:22 AM</span>

[Larn]

Nice post! I'm glad discussions like this are up and poeple are active in them. What class are we talking about next?Dexx D'Dashing<div></div>

[Dracor]

On my guardian, I taunt and then run circles around the other group outside their melee and CA range. It takes them a long time usually to figure out why that mage they are immediately next to is "out of range" for all of their abilities....<div></div>

[Memmoch]

I went down the Wis and Sta line maxed both the buckler and the mitigation.  I'm now working on going down the STR line to get to working on the aggro generation.  I sometimes do the whole "taunt and run outside of their range" tactic but with me double hitting 76% of the time and having most my spells T7 at master 1 now you can run in and do some serious dmg to a cloth wearer.  Seperate encounters demand seperate game plans, sometimes it's best to buckler down, stand right in the middle of everyone and just absorb the dmg and sometimes (how often do you get perfect pvp balanced groups?) you need to play the role of a hybrid.  The buckler line imo does this perfectly, with the extra chance of parrying/avoiding them from it and the 76% double hit rate don't count this out as a valuable tool for pvping.  Once our guild is deep into T7 raiding I'll probably switch though over to the agi line or int line but until then you just can't go wrong with the buckler line. Just my 2 coppers <div></div>

[wes_GS]

<DIV>I feel like I should chime in here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As a raid guardian, Im setup with STA/WIS AAs and I always have tons of resist gear on me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In PvP there are a couple of tactics I have found effective.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1)  Defense.</DIV> <DIV>As the OP pointed out, guardians can be extremely hard to kill with 9k+ hp, 5500+ hp, and max resists (at least heat/cold/poison/disease/magic).  This requires a very tight well oiled group to succeed.  Your entire group needs to be very aware of everyones abilities and how each other person plays.  This works very well for tight groups of pvpers and these tight groups usually end up with a reputation of being very hard to kill.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Offsense.</DIV> <DIV>Guardian dps isnt anywhere near as bad as it was before.  With the STA AA line, max strength, and master Obliterate/Flay/Retaliation Strike we can do some serious damage very fast.  When setup for dps, I usually open with Staggering Blow followed by Belly Smash which drops their physical mitigation by ~700.  Then hit my 3 big attacks.  Within a matter of seconds, they have taken 3 - 4k damage.  Auto attack or a bow usually finishes them off.  I can handle most classes (except healers) 1v1.  In a group setting, you can usually target another groups healer and hit them with several big attacks before the opposing tank has a chance to target and taunt.  Use the taunt/run tactic mentioned above to avoid alot of hits.  Joust in/out of combat to add your auto attack damage to the mix.  Biggest key here, is keep agro and use CAs without getting hit as much.  With this strategy, avoid is better than mitigation.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Recently, I almost always pvp with the second strategy mentioned here.  In T7, fights dont last very long at all (unless near a bind spot).  You want to be able to kill at least one of an enemy group before they have a chance to zone/evac.  Maximizing damage here works best for me.  Hopefully, people (on both sides) will grow some balls soon and actually fight instead of hitting the zone right before immunity wears off.</DIV>

[Tybr]

<P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Izzypop wrote:<BR> <DIV align=center><FONT size=6>  Rule #1 There's no crying in baseball!</FONT><BR></DIV><BR>    When in doubt refer back to rule #1 <SPAN>:smileytongue:</SPAN><BR><BR>  My current red server guaridan is 68 almost 69.  I would be 70 by now if I didn't start off with a brigand.  I'm not raid geared, but am in full legendary.  I harvest, solo doing wirts and quests, duo, do small groups, do full groups both in pvp and pve so my experinces are well rounded.  I also think playing a scout gave me a valueable point of view from a scout's point of view.  Here is my philosophy of red server guardians and my experiances.<BR><BR>  Rule #1 There's no crying in baseball!  Life is rough on a red server there is a wonderfull thread called "welcome to the jungle" about red server life.  Orange con players 8 levels higher than you will track you down to start afight.  If you go out alone groups of orange cons will hunt you.  Once you begin to xp in sinking sands in your late 40's then level 70's will hunt you down in unlimited pvp range zones.  When grouped you group will fall victem to many lobsided fights as gank squads that out level your group hunt you down.  You can't be to high strung or worried about getting killed especially when solo.<BR><BR>  A guardian's roll in pvp.  <FONT color=#9933ff>Keep your groupmates alive pure and simple.</FONT>  We are not dps.  Zerkers, Sk's, Monks, Bralwers,  and I think even pallies (but not possitive on the pally part) all out dps us in PVP  We are bottom of the dps barrel.   We are however the hardest class to kill, and we have the best PVP taunts and intercepts.  Now the trick is to work with what we have.  For PvP gear up as defensive as possible.  Mitigation and ressissts are #1 everything else including stats are 2ndary.  Stripping your stats for maxed out ressists makes our poor dps even worse and well this just makes a hopeless situation of going 1 on 1 with a zerker, bruiser, or monk even more hopeless.  Being a proper pvp tank takes a lot of personal sacrafice.  What good does a bruiser/monk's group pvp taunt do if they get 1 shoted by an ice nova or fusion?  Freeport Gaurdians need all the cold/heat ressists they could get, and Quenies need Disease, Disease, and more Disease ressists.<BR><BR> <DIV align=center><FONT size=4>  Group PVP combat.  </FONT><BR></DIV><BR>    My personal philosophy: <FONT color=#cc00ff>If your the 1st in your group to die you did your job right.</FONT>  You can't win every fight especially when the other group has levels on you.  My job as a guardian is to keep the healer and squishies alive.  If anybody dies before me I have failed as a guardian, if I die 1st I did my job right.  If I stay alive my healer is doing thier job right, if we win the fight my groups dps did their job right.  My only concern in a pvp fight is keeping 5 other people alive, and try to not get squished myself ie tower of stone, and other short term buffs.  60 seconds is an eternity in PvP if you can buy your group that much time and they can't drop the other side they are either doing something wrong or are just plain out classed/leveled.   The outcome of a 6 on 6 group pvp battle is almost always decided in the 1st 30 seconds of the fight.  The precious 1st minute is life and death of your group.<BR><BR>    The mind of a PvP DPS class.  There are 2 types of thought here what they should do in PvP combat. <BR>       A) Kill the healer 1st  This is what most people do.  As soon as someone figures out who the healer is everybody will try to target them and splatter the healer.  Every PvP tank has to deal with 4 dps attempting to splatter their healer on a routine basis.<BR>       B) Kill the cloth class 1st.  Smash the glass cannons 1st  They are so fragile and drop so fast healers can't save them.  With the other groups dps gone they will not be able to overwhelm your group's healers healing abilities.<BR><BR>    That being said Guardians are the best class for keeping people alive.  Very defensive, best PvP taunts in the game, and the best PvP intercepts in the game.  Guardian Sphere absolutely rocks in pvp.  Sentry watch is a 30 second "I win" button once that's popped the other group absolutely can not kill your healer without killing you 1st no matter how hard they try.   Personally I often open up with Tower of stone, Guardian sphere, and Sentry watch and don't even bother taunting until about 20 seconds or so into sentry watch.  Don't underestimate your Sentinel line in PvP players are a lot smarter than mobs and will always try to cut your healer down.  Add on top of that you 2 avoidance buffs onto the healer and they are in much better shape.    Over all I am very happy about how well a guardian can tank in 6 on 6 pvp combat.<BR><BR> <DIV align=center><FONT size=4>Solo PvP combat</FONT><BR></DIV><BR>  This goes back to rule #1 <SPAN>:smileytongue:  Life is rough, even moreso when your a solo guardian.  Healers and other fighters kick our butt.   We can beat even con scouts but we rarely meet even con scouts (they are usually yellow, orange, or red con when they jump us), when we fight them they almost always get the jump on us (either bent over harvesting a node or engaged to solo mobs as we try to solo) because of tracking and stealth, and even when we start to beat scouts if they decide to run we can't catch them (other classes might [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] about evak, we don't have to because we have no snare <SPAN>:smileysurprised:</SPAN>)  Mages, now mages on the other hand we can terrorize.  If you geared yourself out for resssits to take a pounding from mages in group PvP combat then their roots and nukes are going to be ressistsed like crazy and luck for us mages have less mitigation than a wet paper bag so we can dps our way through them.<BR><BR>  If anybody else has questions or input post away.  Over all I'm very happy with the state of our class in the endgame.<BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR> </P> <P>Well said Oh verbose one.</P> <P>:smileyvery-happy:</P>