Newbie Guardian

[Karudin]

Heya guys,

  I've rolled a Guardian and have him to L20, and I didnt think of reading this forum as I figured that Guardian's were tanks ... didnt realise they were nerfed to the point of disbelief. So is it worth rerolling to another "tanking" class or is there a balancing coming up in another GU or expansion that will make rolling a Guardian better?

And any advice on AA's or links to a Guardian AA tree would be great

[Emlar_from_Halas]

Starting a guardian at the moment is a matter a faith The class has been nerfed compared to what it was during RoK, but it's still a very playable class, specially with raid gear. Without, it's more of a challenge, not really from a survival point of view, but for your aggro management. Starting a SK would probably be less frustrating if you want to play a tank.Guardian is a class that requires skill (as most other classes) and stuff. A lot of stuff in fact. So unless, you expect to raid a lot once you reach 80, be ready for some desillusion.And you will also learn that you need to setup your group very carefully if you don't want to become mad.

As a general advise, whatever tank you'll play, take time to raise your AAs, it makes a huge difference, even at low level.

Good luck anyway

[EverAfterIt]

Your only 20, your not even a real tank yet.

Every single class I've tried sucked until the 50's. I've tried most. I've tried all three tanks... deleted the monk because it was just annoying as hell, kept a bruiser to toy with and got a Guard to 80 and have had an SK shelved at 53. SK is fun, but my fun comes more from when I'm soloing. My Guard is my group/raid tank preference.

I can clearly recall the Guard sucking till the 50's. Then it showed itself to be a group tank. I also mostly solo'd to 80 on the Guard, in a hurry to get there and find a raid spot. My biggest mistake. Soloing a Guard nearly made me delete him on several occasions. If your not gonna group consistently - and you shouldn't because quests reward more aa overall - then at least find a duo healer to chum around with and beat on crap.

[Xalmat]

If you're looking to get to 80 quickly, I'd almost recommend betraying to Berserker, then betraying back to Guardian once you hit 80.

[LygerT]

guardians weren't nerfed as hard as many make it out to be, the only real nerf was a slight loss of aggro generation from the stamina line. the major difference people have been complaining about is the content variation where most of the new zones are very AE heavy where most guardians have only ever learned to tank one mob at a time since guards do not have great tools for AE encounters. not that they cant do the job, it just takes more work and gear specialized for it.

guards are a little slower to solo, you can use the zerk to level up with then betray like Xalmat said. the current flavor of this expansion though is crusader, SK being more DPS oriented and pally being more defensive 'put amends on target and take a nap" sort of tanks, even though pallies have always been so but both of the classes are easier now to play than ever.

while levelling DPS is obviously your best friend to move at a decent rate, i would start with stamina to get double attack capped then take crit from strength and follow up with haste in the int tree. you could play around with the order, since haste is harder to get for a low level guard it may benefit you a bit more early on.

[RafaelSmith]

A Guard can be a good tank class, assuming of course all you want to do is tank...cause thats all we are good for....But like others have said AGGRO requires alot more work.....especially in the new AE heavy content, it requires specfic gear sets and most importantly it requires very selective group construction.

The latter would be the one thing I would caution about.  If you don't mind having less wiggle room as to which classes you can group with than a SK or Zerk then stick with Guard.   Currently if you do not have at least  2 forms of hate xfer in your group and well behaved AE dps classes......running most of TSO as Guard is beyond frustrating.

[Karudin]

Hey guys,

    thanks for the knowledge and advise, I'm not looking to power level up to 80 in a week but i am in it for the long haul. The reason i asked the question was due to the amount of posts complaining about the Guardians being hit with the nerf bat ... and I realise I'm not a real tank in this game but I've been playing Everquest 1 since inseption and had a Warrior / Cleric dual box team, and i've done the same in LotrO, but I left those games along time ago and have always wanted to get into EQ2.

Maybe it will come down to dual boxing again and see how that works.

  but again thank you for your insights and experience, if you have any more please just tag it on cause it's all interesting getting different points of views,

[pickleman]

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

A Guard can be a good tank class, assuming of course all you want to do is tank...cause thats all we are good for....But like others have said AGGRO requires alot more work.....especially in the new AE heavy content, it requires specfic gear sets and most importantly it requires very selective group construction.

The latter would be the one thing I would caution about.  If you don't mind having less wiggle room as to which classes you can group with than a SK or Zerk then stick with Guard.   Currently if you do not have at least  2 forms of hate xfer in your group and well behaved AE dps classes......running most of TSO as Guard is beyond frustrating.

Guards can handle the new AE-based content with a few AA changes...4 4 8 down the AGI line gives a 40% chance your primary weapon's auto attack will hit 4 targets. We're excellent with single-mob aggro, but we can definitely make up for the lack of AE power no problem; maybe not as great as a zerker or SK, but enough to hold aggro with AE dps in the group.

[RafaelSmith]

pickleman wrote:

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

A Guard can be a good tank class, assuming of course all you want to do is tank...cause thats all we are good for....But like others have said AGGRO requires alot more work.....especially in the new AE heavy content, it requires specfic gear sets and most importantly it requires very selective group construction.

The latter would be the one thing I would caution about. If you don't mind having less wiggle room as to which classes you can group with than a SK or Zerk then stick with Guard. Currently if you do not have at least 2 forms of hate xfer in your group and well behaved AE dps classes......running most of TSO as Guard is beyond frustrating.

Guards can handle the new AE-based content with a few AA changes...4 4 8 down the AGI line gives a 40% chance your primary weapon's auto attack will hit 4 targets. We're excellent with single-mob aggro, but we can definitely make up for the lack of AE power no problem; maybe not as great as a zerker or SK, but enough to hold aggro with AE dps in the group.

Aye.  Which is why I said that we can do it but it takes alot more work, gear, AA and more restrictive group makeup in alot of these TSO instances than it does for the AE tanks...especially the ones that can keep aggro without requiring hate xfer.

[pickleman]

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

pickleman wrote:

Gaylon@Mistmoore wrote:

A Guard can be a good tank class, assuming of course all you want to do is tank...cause thats all we are good for....But like others have said AGGRO requires alot more work.....especially in the new AE heavy content, it requires specfic gear sets and most importantly it requires very selective group construction.

The latter would be the one thing I would caution about. If you don't mind having less wiggle room as to which classes you can group with than a SK or Zerk then stick with Guard. Currently if you do not have at least 2 forms of hate xfer in your group and well behaved AE dps classes......running most of TSO as Guard is beyond frustrating.

Guards can handle the new AE-based content with a few AA changes...4 4 8 down the AGI line gives a 40% chance your primary weapon's auto attack will hit 4 targets. We're excellent with single-mob aggro, but we can definitely make up for the lack of AE power no problem; maybe not as great as a zerker or SK, but enough to hold aggro with AE dps in the group.

Aye.  Which is why I said that we can do it but it takes alot more work, gear, AA and more restrictive group makeup in alot of these TSO instances than it does for the AE tanks...especially the ones that can keep aggro without requiring hate xfer.

I was just going into specifics as to how a guard would set up their Warrior AA's

[Karudin]

Speaking of AAs ... I've been looking into them as I'm leveling up and getting AAs and I think once I hit 32 I'll cap my exp and get my AAexp up to date. I've found some good posts to follow for a basically DPS Guardian to continue my leveling. Until I get to the stage where I actually start being of any use to a group and can get one easily. Any further AA specs other then haste, sta and agi up, as I think my armor is compensating alot of my str. And i'm also glad this hasnt turned into the usual flame post so cheers for that guys.

so this is the AA list I'm following in Offensive Stance

INT 4/4/6/8/2STA 4/4/8/8STR 4/4/8

which according to alot of peeps is working well in TSO and great for soloing so we'll see how it goes

[Undorett]

You will not be able to put that many AA into your Warrior tree until you are 70...unless they changed that?? 

for soloing/small groups and leveling, I would suggest even doing something like

INT 4 4 8

STA 4 4 8

STR 4 4 8

this will give you the highest dps possible, really, the game up to 60 was made for characters with 0 AA, so maximizing your dps through these levels is the most effective use of AA for any tank.  It maximizes your agro and helps your group (or if your soloing) kill faster, which means faster exp.  Nothing requires you to really add to your block percent or parry a ton. 

After this move into your damage line in your Guardian tree, and branch down out of the dps line to grab both rescue and reinforcement as well.  By the time you have all that you will likely know what you need to work on as a tank for the rest of your AA.

If you plan to level slowly through the game, with groups you pick up, please know that most of the groups you will be in are likely people who have leveled in the game already.  They have a level 80 toon with money and gear and whatever, and they are leveling an alt up for fun.  Typically what they like to do is play an overpowered toon to level with.  High dps classes are mostly picked, they will rip agro from you left and right unless you can outpase them in dps/hate gain.  Keep your skills up to date, ideally all at AD3.  If you plan to level fast, this is too expensive, if you plan to level slowly, it will become something you need to do, or you will hate your guardian as even healers will likely rip agro from a guardian in app1-4 skills and low AA. 

In general the guardian class gives up agro generation for spike damage survivability vs other tanks, but don't make that an excuse to lose agro

[Xalmat]

Might also consider STR 4 4 8 STA 4 4 8 AGI 4 4 8 for pre-70. Will help a bit with AoE aggro, but you'll lose out on the haste from INT tree.

The above post is spot-on advice, I second what was said!

[Undorett]

I would have said the agility thing, but really there are not a ton of groups mobs pre-TSO but yes, mirror spec for AGI for zones that have groups of mobs or where you are going to pull multiple encounters constantly