New Guardian Prestige

[Rhita]

Defensive Tree

Champions's Interception - Intercedes all damage for 12 seconds for 5 group members. Caster takes 30%, targets take 70%.

I'm not too impressed with Champion's Interception. Group wide intercept, we can't even use it in raids because it will kill us. Even taking 30% damage from each person in group, thats 150% damage from intercept then 100% from it hitting me already.

Will of the Champion - Cures roots and mez off targets. Guardian becomes immune to these effects for a short duration. I can cure root and mez. What is this? PvP prestige?

Champion's Armor - 3% damage reduction to targets. - The reduced damage is an ok one. (3 ranks)

Champion's Hatred - 5% of the unmitigated damage is applied as hate? Doesn't seem like its even worth the points. (3 ranks)

Champions Stand - 10% damage reduction to all priest (maintained) I like this one (1 rank)

Offensive Tree

Defender's Charge - Inflicts double damage if not tanking. Minor damage that puts up a 30sec buff that procs minor damage and 3% damage reduction for the guardian for every CA used, Not bad but not sure if its worth the offensive tree. (3 ranks)

Defender's Power - Increase damage of Defenders charge by 50%. Makes it a little better but meh. (3 ranks)

Blades of Protection - adds 1 additional strike - meh (3 ranks)

Defensive Bulwark - Increases the damage reduction by 1% - so 6% total? /meh (3 ranks)

Protecting Spirit - Increases the duration of Grit by 10 seconds and adds a second strike to defenders charge.  So 40 seconds, its not bad but thats a lot of wasted points imo.

Middle Tree?

Stalwart Conviction - Passively increase stamina bonus - more hp isnt bad.

Shield Bash - deal damage on a block. This one isnt bad but it isnt good either.

[slippery]

I have to agree with the intercept being terrible. We've spent years trying to get this stuff taken off abilities because all it does is kill us. It is even still on some stuff. It is bad, it's a death sentence. This ability would be okayish if the 30% that the guardian is supposed to take just went away. I'd imagine the root/mez cure will cure more stuff with more ranks, in which case it is probably fine. The offensive tree seems mediocre at best. So basically, if you are actually a tank, you know what Guardians are supposed to be doing, you take a line that gets you killed in raids or has basically no value in heroic content, or you take a line that gets neutered if you are tanking. In other words you get nothing. Awesome. Cool. I'm so excited... I can't really see what was trying to be accomplished here

[Rhita]

slippery wrote:

I have to agree with the intercept being terrible. We've spent years trying to get this stuff taken off abilities because all it does is kill us. It is even still on some stuff. It is bad, it's a death sentence. This ability would be okayish if the 30% that the guardian is supposed to take just went away. I'd imagine the root/mez cure will cure more stuff with more ranks, in which case it is probably fine. The offensive tree seems mediocre at best. So basically, if you are actually a tank, you know what Guardians are supposed to be doing, you take a line that gets you killed in raids or has basically no value in heroic content, or you take a line that gets neutered if you are tanking. In other words you get nothing. Awesome. Cool. I'm so excited... I can't really see what was trying to be accomplished here

I agree here, it's like they gave us guardian sphere before it was changed all over again. We all remember SF, where we had to take guardian sphere off our hot bars because of the countless times it killed us.

[aislynn00]

Champion's Interception

This one is a true disaster.  Almost all of our new defensive tree abilities are tied to this one buff, yet it is utterly suicidal to use during any kind of content that matters.

May I suggest a simple fix: 

Champion's Intercession - Grants 30% damage reduction to all non-fighter group members for 12 seconds.

Will of the Champion

Cures roots and mez?  When was the last time that was of anything but the most marginal use during raids?  If it has to be a cure, then at least add something useful to the list of control effects, such as stifle.

Champion's Armor

More damage reduction to the targets isn't horrible.  The damage reduction should affect the guardian, too, though.

Champion's Hatred

5% of the unmitigated damage for 12 seconds?  That's laughably little.  You wouldn't be able to tell the difference even with a parser.  Now, if hate generation is what this ability is supposed to be about, how about this:

Champion's Hatred - Increases the guardian's hate by 100% of the unmitigated damage prevented by Champion's Intercession.

Champion's Stand

Anything which improves priest survivability is nice.   The one decent ability of the new tree.

[aislynn00]

Rhita@Unrest wrote:

slippery wrote:

I have to agree with the intercept being terrible. We've spent years trying to get this stuff taken off abilities because all it does is kill us. It is even still on some stuff. It is bad, it's a death sentence. This ability would be okayish if the 30% that the guardian is supposed to take just went away. I'd imagine the root/mez cure will cure more stuff with more ranks, in which case it is probably fine. The offensive tree seems mediocre at best. So basically, if you are actually a tank, you know what Guardians are supposed to be doing, you take a line that gets you killed in raids or has basically no value in heroic content, or you take a line that gets neutered if you are tanking. In other words you get nothing. Awesome. Cool. I'm so excited... I can't really see what was trying to be accomplished here

I agree here, it's like they gave us guardian sphere before it was changed all over again. We all remember SF, where we had to take guardian sphere off our hot bars because of the countless times it killed us.

Sentinel remains a buff that I can't use during raids.  I never understood why that one wasn't changed back when they revamped Guardian Sphere.

Bottom line, we really don't need more abilities that render us weaker tanks.

[slippery]

The stamina increase bonus thing in the center must be bugged. The decimal place must be off by 2 points. 3 points makes it so you can 10.3 hp per point of stamina instead of 10? I can't see anyone actually taking this, that almost no extra hp.

[Xelgad]

The damage the Guardian takes from Champion's Interception is decreased dramatically with additional ranks.

EDIT: Are you sure you put three points into the Stamina Bonus Prestige? The value you're showing is what you should get from one point spent. It basically changes Stamina from 10 to 11 health per point. If it's not doing that with three points, it's a bug.

Will of the Champion adds more effects with more points spent. Including Stifle, Stuns, Dazes and Fear.

[slippery]

I can't speak to it, and it may be a display bug. After someone put 3 points in it I asked them what it said when they moused over Stamina and that was the response I got (it wasn't a Guardian). The immunity stuff will be fine with 3 points, I figured it would add those and I like it like that. The damage the Guardian takes really needs to just disappear. Even at 10% you're talking 150% from AE's, AE's that can already one shot you if not stoneskinned. Sentinel already doesn't get cast in raids because it gets you killed, and that's only 25% trauma 48% of the time. Damage in raids from AE's, especially at close range, is not insignificant. Is there a buffer around yet? There really should be

[Rhita]

slippery wrote:

The damage the Guardian takes really needs to just disappear. Even at 10% you're talking 150% from AE's, AE's that can already one shot you if not stoneskinned. Sentinel already doesn't get cast in raids because it gets you killed, and that's only 25% trauma 48% of the time. Damage in raids from AE's, especially at close range, is not insignificant.

This is exactly how I feel, a few expansions ago I had spoken to devs about fixing Sentinel and was told it was going to be adjusted. It's an ability I can't even use. I suggested that Sentinel be changed to a 10% damage reduction for mage priest only with 10% Potency to add a little utility to us.

As for Champion's Intercession Slippery is right, 150% damage from an AE because you are trying to protect your group is going to get you killed a lot. Eventually we will get tired of dying because of it and remove it from our hotbars. At 3 points the guardian should take 0% additional damage. I like the idea of protecting my group, but its not worth it if I just die and they are on their own anyways.

[Estred]

Just going off what I can see here (just getting on beta server now) It sounds like once again Sony has forgotten that Intercepts died off during KoS because of damage scaling. Now to even cast Intercept III I have to have Tower of Stone running I use it as an offtank to essentially DI the MT when I am not in that position. Reduction already gets capped in raids or near to it from our healers so what exactly is this prestige pack supposed to give us?

I would rather see group DMG reduction or something to actually buff our damage for going full defensive. Offense spec'd Guardians are dead Guardians as our already low DPS doesn't get increased marginally enough for the ammount of protection we lose. Hell I don't use any of the current Offense Prestieges with the exception of the Commanders Charge dmg-proc because it helps my group. Guardians are supposed to protect their group at all costs but giving us a move to very quickly 1 shot ourselves is very counter productive to that in todays Raid content where 1 AE one shots us without a stoneskin.

I probably will post again once I get some testing done.

[slippery]

Not that you can even cast intercede half the time if you do have the stoneskin up because the range is standing on top of the person.

[DeathMagus]

Rhita@Unrest wrote:

Offensive Tree

Defender's Charge - Inflicts double damage if not tanking. Minor damage that puts up a 30sec buff that procs minor damage and 3% damage reduction for the guardian for every CA used, Not bad but not sure if its worth the offensive tree. (3 ranks)

Defender's Power - Increase damage of Defenders charge by 50%. Makes it a little better but meh. (3 ranks)

Blades of Protection - adds 1 additional strike - meh (3 ranks)

Defensive Bulwark - Increases the damage reduction by 1% - so 6% total? /meh (3 ranks)

Protecting Spirit - Increases the duration of Grit by 10 seconds and adds a second strike to defenders charge.  So 40 seconds, its not bad but thats a lot of wasted points imo.

Middle Tree?

Stalwart Conviction - Passively increase stamina bonus - more hp isnt bad.

Shield Bash - deal damage on a block. This one isnt bad but it isnt good either.

Since it's easier to just ask you on here atm here goes...

So... how about that offensive tree...  Does the 10 sec duration mod the dmg reduction effect?

What a... middle tree.  So apparently you'll be able to get 10% more hp from stamina.. that's actually kinda meh tbh.  I would have liked the aditional 34.0 stamina bonus per point as it reads in beta.  Oh... and a second reversal... that's kinda sad.  

[Soul_Dreamer]

Seconding everything thats already been said really. 

As a MT I won't be able to use the main defensive ability when it's designed to be used because it will kill me. Guardian Sphere was changed to not intercept because of this very reason.

Can't we just change it to apply a stoneskin to the closest 5 people in a similar way to how Sphere was changed to proc stoneskins instead of intercept?

What is the reasoning behind having it as a traditional intercept? 

Shield Bash - Looks to me to just be Reversal for blocks only and on a 10 sec timer. We've tried to tell you countless times just how little DPS/Hate this ability actually does for us. I can't see this one being a great deal better.

Offensive line - I'm somewhat confused why the offensive line has DR as one of it's main benefits, shouldn't it apply CB or something similar and stack on the triggers rather than DR?

[Soul_Dreamer]

Xelgad wrote:

The damage the Guardian takes from Champion's Interception is decreased dramatically with additional ranks.

EDIT: Are you sure you put three points into the Stamina Bonus Prestige? The value you're showing is what you should get from one point spent. It basically changes Stamina from 10 to 11 health per point. If it's not doing that with three points, it's a bug.

Will of the Champion adds more effects with more points spent. Including Stifle, Stuns, Dazes and Fear.

The initial percentages are 70/30, how much is "Dramatically" I don't have time to get onto Beta and test properly until Thursday.

Does anyone have the later ranks? I've assumed 70/20 and 70/10 for 2 and 3 points respectively.

[aislynn00]

slippery wrote:

The damage the Guardian takes really needs to just disappear. Even at 10% you're talking 150% from AE's, AE's that can already one shot you if not stoneskinned. Sentinel already doesn't get cast in raids because it gets you killed, and that's only 25% trauma 48% of the time. Damage in raids from AE's, especially at close range, is not insignificant.

I couldn't agree more.

[Faildozer]

im taking the offensive side, not because i think its good but because A. I dont think the intercept is going to be needed and we have sentry's watch which only is useful every so often and B. the whole i may die if i use this portion.

The offensive side is a nice idea but the damage could be a little higher. After parsing it last night it just felt mediocre for the point investment and I am almost wondering if grabbing the crit bonus conversion from the tank side and then picking up just the basic rank of defenders charge would be better.

[Faildozer]

did some testing and right side is more dps, parses better than i was thinking it was last night.

[Emlar_from_Halas]

Soul_Dreamer wrote:

Xelgad wrote:

The damage the Guardian takes from Champion's Interception is decreased dramatically with additional ranks.

EDIT: Are you sure you put three points into the Stamina Bonus Prestige? The value you're showing is what you should get from one point spent. It basically changes Stamina from 10 to 11 health per point. If it's not doing that with three points, it's a bug.

Will of the Champion adds more effects with more points spent. Including Stifle, Stuns, Dazes and Fear.

The initial percentages are 70/30, how much is "Dramatically" I don't have time to get onto Beta and test properly until Thursday.

Does anyone have the later ranks? I've assumed 70/20 and 70/10 for 2 and 3 points respectively.

Second rank is 60/20, third rank is 50/10.

[Emlar_from_Halas]

Karnoz@Splitpaw wrote:

Will of the Champion

Cures roots and mez?  When was the last time that was of anything but the most marginal use during raids?  If it has to be a cure, then at least add something useful to the list of control effects, such as stifle.

Daze and Stiffle come with 2nd rank

Stun and Fear come with 3rd rank

and provide immunity for 5 secs.

Pretty good I would say, specially for an expansion where fear is used a lot, and it used to be crusaders focus.

[slippery]

Except you can't cast it will under control effects, really making it useless when it's sole purpose is to cure those.

[Soul_Dreamer]

slippery wrote:

Except you can't cast it will under control effects, really making it useless when it's sole purpose is to cure those.

LOL, please fix this, because as slippery states, it's uselsss.

If the intercept is going to stay as an intercept then at the very least the final rank needs to be very low inc damage.

I'd suggest 70/12, 60/8, 50/4, it equates to the Guardian taking up to 120% damage from attacks for the duration, even this is still too high though. If you want it to stay at 10%, could we maybe split the damage absorbed between the fighters in the raids so that one Guardian isn't taking up to 150% damage?

[Boli32]

Does it work with a stoneskin?

e.g. perhaps its intended to cast with a stoneskin so you can convert an AoE into a single SS trigger which you can use?

If it doesn't it is surprising that a defensive tank has an endline which i pressed is liable to kill them on every AoE where-as other tanks get abilities which save them.

[Emlar_from_Halas]

slippery wrote:

Except you can't cast it will under control effects, really making it useless when it's sole purpose is to cure those.

You're right, though it would still be possible to time a stun AE.Where this prestige is really difficult to use is that is doesn't completely immune you for 5 secs, it just suspends the effect for 5 secs.Let me give an example:

You cast it. 2 secs later you receive a stun/fear/whatever that is supposed to last for 7 secs. You are then immune for the remaining 3 secs, but you can see the effect in your detrimental window. And when your immune fades, you are then stun/feared/whatever for the remaining 4 secs

Another thing. When you look at the tooltip, it is said, that it cures 157 level of stun/fear/whateverr.But in reality, you are never cured.

At least, if you are immune, you should'nt get any stun/fear/whatever for 5 secs at all.

Even better, make it usable when affected. But I suspect some will find this OP.

Even though such cure would be obtained at an extra 50% dammage, which, we all agree, is quite risky, even combined with a stoneskin.

[DeathMagus]

Soul_Dreamer wrote:

slippery wrote:

Except you can't cast it will under control effects, really making it useless when it's sole purpose is to cure those.

LOL, please fix this, because as slippery states, it's uselsss.

If the intercept is going to stay as an intercept then at the very least the final rank needs to be very low inc damage.

I'd suggest 70/12, 60/8, 50/4, it equates to the Guardian taking up to 120% damage from attacks for the duration, even this is still too high though. If you want it to stay at 10%, could we maybe split the damage absorbed between the fighters in the raids so that one Guardian isn't taking up to 150% damage?

Splitting the dmg with other fighters in raid sounds a lot like "Can I try to team kill people in my raid?"  To be honest the intercept sounds like it'll be just about as much fun as the original Inquis myth which was scrapped because it was the "I want to kill my tank" button.  

[Brildean]

If anythign should be a 2  shot stone skin for everyone in the group.. including the guardian. Would be more useful.

[Soul_Dreamer]

Step 1:

1 point - 1 Shot stoneskin for closest 5 people.2 points - add a 10% limit on damage to the stoneskin.3 points - add another trigger.

Make the immune/cure castable through the effects.

Step 2:

......

Step 3:

Profit

[aislynn00]

Soul_Dreamer wrote:

Step 1:

1 point - 1 Shot stoneskin for closest 5 people.2 points - add a 10% limit on damage to the stoneskin.3 points - add another trigger.

Now, who wouldn't love to see that kind of ability.  

Unfortunately, based on what crusaders are getting vs what guardians have been assigned, I have a feeling Xelgad likes where guardians are at survivabilitywise.  Group and raid utility, rather than personal survivability, is what we're going to get.

Assuming the utility is actually useful in a raid setting, though, I don't terribly mind.

That said, I decidedly dislike where we stand right now.

1) Our group control effect cure, while otherwise nice with 3 points invested, is effectively useless simply because it can't be cast while afflicted with one of said control effects.

2) The hate transferral ability transfers an utterly insignificant amount of hate.  Please run the numbers.  5% per person amounts to 25% total.  Suppose the AE hits everyone for 100K before mitigation.  That's 500K damage, 25% of which results in 125K hate transferred.  That's about what I get from clicking my basic single-target taunt two times.

Seriously, that should be way, way higher.

3) Damage transferral to the main tank is bad.  Period.  Full stop.  

Our job is to minimize incoming damage, not add to it, especially when we run a very significant risk of killing ourselves in the process, quite possibly wiping the entire raid as a consequence.  Please don't tie all but one of our new, ostensibly defensive AA's to something which actually significantly weakens us as tanks.

Even if you have to lower the damage reduction amount conferred to group members, please do so as long as it means we won't have to deal with any damage transferral.

[aislynn00]

Emlar@Storms wrote:

Even though such cure would be obtained at an extra 50% dammage, which, we all agree, is quite risky, even combined with a stoneskin.

The transferred damage would probably show up as five separate sources of damage, thus eating not one but five stoneskins.  It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it.

[Emlar_from_Halas]

Karnoz@Splitpaw wrote:

Emlar@Storms wrote:

Even though such cure would be obtained at an extra 50% dammage, which, we all agree, is quite risky, even combined with a stoneskin.

The transferred damage would probably show up as five separate sources of damage, thus eating not one but five stoneskins.  It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it.

That's even worse. Several times yesterday during raid, it proced up to 9 times.Apparently it procs on any source of dammage, mostly on small DS output, which makes it useless to protect anyone.

Here's a log extract from yesterday on the biggest intercept that I made during raid :

(1351107422)[Wed Oct 24 21:37:02 2012] You intercept some of the damage intended for Lefierx!(1351107422)[Wed Oct 24 21:37:02 2012] Binthaf's Shield of Faith absorbs 1130 points of damage from being done to YOU.(1351107422)[Wed Oct 24 21:37:02 2012] Caerina the Lost hits YOU but fails to inflict any damage.(1351107422)[Wed Oct 24 21:37:02 2012] YOUR Champion's Interception increases YOUR hate with Caerina the Lost by 3118 threat.(1351107422)[Wed Oct 24 21:37:02 2012] Caerina the Lost's Lost Hopes hits Lefierx for 6996 magic damage.

I run it with only one point in hate generation (5%)Lefier took 6996 dmg, which should correspond to the remaining 50%, but I took only 1130 (instead of expected 1749)For a total 13992 dmg (which probably result from an unmitigated 55968 initial dmg), I got 3K threat

At least, this prestige needs to be modified to provide stoneskin on dmg higher than 10% of total HP from people protected. Otherwise it doesn't serve any purpose.

[Soul_Dreamer]

Currently it intercepts all damage for 12 seconds doesn't it, so it will cover large AOE's and those small DS hits, if it's changed to a stoneskin it will need to have a limitation on %, currently all a limitation would acheive is some damage not intercepted.

The intercept though is the whole problem, we've had abilities changed in the past because they killed us, or at least had a very large chance to. After getting Sphere changed I'm at a loss as to why we're getting this ability in this form.

Keep it closest 5 people (Guardian Excluded), I'm more than happy with raid/group survivability/utility as long as it actually works and provides useful utility. I would say that it would be nice if the Defensive line had something defensive for the Guardian though, currently it doesn't and the offensive side actually has more DR than the defensive.

Champions Interception - 

The Guardian will absorb incomming damage for up to 5 allies near them. Does not apply to pets.

Applies Champions Interception. Lasts for 12.0 seconds. 

1 point - Will absorb all damage. This spell will absorb a total of 1 attack.

2 points - Will absorb all damage when the amount is greater than 10% of the targets HP. This spell will absorb a total of 1 attack.

3 points -  Will absorb all damage when the amount is greater than 10% of the targets HP. This spell will absorb a total of 2 attacks.

Rather than absorbing 50% of all damage for 12 seconds we absorb all damage for 2 hits. This will be a lot more useable, predictable and it won't kill us. It also doesn't directly increase the Guardians survivability.

AT the very least this ability needs the damage the Guardian absorbs drastically reduced, ie 1% or removed completely. 

Will of the Champion - 

Leave as is, but make it castable when under the effects it can cure, can each rank also increase the duration of immunity, 5 seconds isn't really enough (as shown below).

Champions Interception will be used primarily BEFORE a large attack or effect, even if timed to be 1 second prior to this effect it only gives a 4 second immunity to the effect after it's actually happened. 1 Second is being very generous though because as a Guardian I already have to cast "Got your Back" and one of "Tower of Stone"/"Last Man Standing"/"Perfect Counter", even back to back you're looking at 2 seconds of casting. Champions Interception will more than likely be used prior to these or after GYB because it has a long duration. On Average you'd be looking at 2-3 seconds immunty after the AOE/Effect lands and that's assuming perfect timing, if the AOE is late or effect delayed then the immunity may not even do anything.

Champions Armour - Fine as is, 9% DR for those closest 5 people will be nice, Similar to Will of the Campion I'm worried about how much this will actually do, the ability will be primarily used to allow group/raid members to stay in for hits that would otherwise kill them. Increased damage reduction after those hits won't do much because the next AOE is still 25/30 seconds away. 

My personal opinion would be to change this ability to increase the Guardians DR either as well as, or instead of. If it stays as is then I can't see it being much use and I probably won't take it.

If however the Guardian gets some DR this will be useful and also provide the small amount of defensive utility for the Guardian that this line is missing. 

Champions Hatred - This is either broken and/or the hate amounts aren't large enough. This needs to be around the 20% mark to be a noticable amount of hate.

Given a full large AOE hitting of 150k unmitigated, if this is blocked and each person of the 5 takes similar damage, the Guardian will receive 30k x 5 = 150k. 

Champions Stand - I like this, leave as is.

The offensive side parsed ok, but frankly as a Guardian my primary job is taking hits, I primarily go for abilities to help with that so I'd veer away from offensive abilities anyway especially at expansion start when progression is the aim.