More Observations and suggestions

[landru]

Hey all,

 

It's been a while since I've posted on these boards mostly because I was waiting for some of the flames to die down.

 

Here some information about my Guardian.  I'm giving you the stats and such in Defensive stance and in grouped with my dual box templar since he's never anywhere without him, so this is my natural environment:

51 Guardian

HP = 5,649 / PW = 2,013

Full set of imbued Ebon (Mitigation = 2825 / Avoidance = 34.0) This is in defensive stance

Electrified Bone Bladed Claymore or Serrated Bone Dirk / Polished Granite Tomahawk (yes I still use this because of the proc)

STR: 198

AGI: 133

STA: 121

INT: 67

WIS: 129 (for resists)

Recently I was running around Everfrost helpin my brothers toon (50 ranger) with the Eye of Power HQ and noticed a few things.

 

1. Even with me starting the fight with a named (Frozen Cyclone - 49^^^) and having my brother wait till it was at 75% health while I taunted with every spell I had he peeled agro off of me within a couple rounds.  I was using the following spells:

1. Rescue - Apprentice II (To start the fight)
2. Assuage - Apprentice II (Cast this on my brother to help manage some agro)
3. Deafen - Apprentice IV (I hit this every time it was up)
4. Vengeful Strike - Adept I (I hit this every time it was up)
5. Maddening Defense - Master II
6. Protect - Appretice IV (hit this every time it was up ... and yes I know it wasn't a multi-mob encouter but I need the agro)
7. Taunting Assault - Adept I (Hit this every time it's up ... and yes I know it wasn't a multi-mob encouter but I need the agro)

Now my brother's toon hits really bloody hard with a T6 imbued bow, poisons, procs from weapons, etc. and pretty much knocked it from 75% to 40% health in his opening round of combat, but you'd think that I would be able to hold agro after hitting the mob and hitting as many taunts as I have.  I know that I don't have all the best spells.  (I wish that I did but don't have the money for it) We did end up beating the mob, but at the cost of the rangers life.

--- Suggestion ---

Investigate the taunts and the taunting power of each of them.  They don't seem to be enough with all the heavy hitters out there.  I know that I don't have Adept 3s and/or Master 1s of every taunt and such but I shouldn't I still be able to keep agro with as many taunts going off?

1. Assuage - I'm sure that the Adept III and beyond have more hate reduction on it but I still feel that this isn't enough.  I still don't feel that this is big enough to truely justify the use of this spell.  It really doesn't seem to help at all.  More of less, just makes me feel like I'm using at least ONE of my utility line.
2. Maddening Defense - Ok, I can live with the fact that it roots me to the ground.  I can even understand why it does this. (Get feared once and you'll like the root) but what I don't understand is this.  If I'm rooted to the point that fears don't work on me and I can't move on my own.  Then why do the 50 meter throwing knock backs shoot me across the zone? My suggestion for this line is to make it true a root:
1. Ok the running portion of fear doesn't work on us.  That's fine leave that
2. Keep the stuff effect of knock backs but since we are rooted the throwing effect doesn't work
3. Ok, we're rooted so when I'm charmed and the spell is still on me I shouldn't be running over and beating on my friends.  Remember I am rooted.
3. Deafen - I would recommend a slight increase in this spell.  Nothing drastic but something has to balance out the resists.
4. Protect - I feel the same way about this spell as I do Deafen
5. Vengeful Strike - I think that the taunt component to this needs to again be increase to balance out the resists of the other taunts since this seem to land more than the deticated taunts.
6. Taunting Assault - Feel the same way about this as I do with Vengeful strike
7. Rescue - Is there an update to this spell? Something at a higher tier? It could be something of a defining trait for Guardians since we are the supposed master of taunts, but if that is considered as overpowered then give it to all fighters, but I would like to see another one of these but with a drastic increase in taunting power to overcome some of the more heavy hitters that we group with.

--------------------------------

2. Another thing that I noticed when grouped with a guild paladin is that they have this spell called Amends.  Now it's a pretty impressive spell by taking 40% (approx) of all hate generated from whatever is the target of that spell and transferring it to the paladin.  No matter what I couldn't get the mobs off of him, it was crazy.  And he got that at 49!  At 49 we got Assuage and Tremor both of which I use but don't have anywhere near that dramatic effect on our tanking ability as something like Amends. 

--- Suggestion ---

1. Something similar to amends would help to increase our ability to be the "master of taunts" which has been stated is our defining trait.  You can make it something similar to Assuage where it transfers the hate generated either from a single target or the whole group.  (We are guards of the group still right?)

--------------------------------

3. Last but not least ... DPS and Utility ... I think that this has been beaten to death by these boards.  I know that I've read a TON of suggestions, comments, concerns, rants and pleas for this.  At launch and with pre-CU conditions it was pretty well known why we have really low DPS.  It was because we could take a hit better than anyone else ... period.  So I was cool with that.  Trading DPS for mitigation was fair and balanced in my book.  Now that we have a level playing field and no plat tank has an advantage over another when it comes to base mitigation it's becoming overly obvious that our DPS needs attention.  As for utility.  Other than Assuage I don't use the others.  Yeah, I've expermented with them in the group situations that I'm in (Guardian, Templar and Ranger), but they seemed to do more harm than good.  Mob AoEs and suddenly I'm at half health because it hit both of the other toons and xferred all that damage back to me.

--- Suggestion ---

1. DPS - This needs to be brought into balance with our new mitigation.  Pre-CU we traded DPS for Mitigation ... Post-CU we lose mitigation but no increase in DPS.  This does need to be addressed.  Even if you make it with one style of weapon ... say ... 1 hand slashing so we could use our tower shields.  Have it be either a buff and/or guardian trait.  Heck, even make it something that you get past 40 so it's only a defining trait for upper levels.  This would also help to "mitigate" our taunting issues as well.  So it would be a win/win situation. 
2. Sentry - my recommendation would be to change this to be another form of Assuage.  Have it decease hate and/or transfer hate back to the caster.  Since we lost health as well as mitigation in the CU it just isn't warrented to have 100% damage come from out of the blue on to the tank.  Have this be the "Big" taunt xfer spell that only works on one target.  Say 40-49% of all hate generated by target is xfered to the caster.  It could still be named as "Sentry"
3. Vigilance - Have this be a lower form of the Sentry line, but cover the whole group.  Same 10-17% but that's from the entire group and not just a single target.  This would allow for a steady hate xfer going to the guardian from all other players. 

--------------------------------

Well, there you have it ... some suggestions from a level 51 guardian.  Yes, I know that I'm not 60 and that there are still things to come, but the spell lines haven't really changed over the course of the levels and I don't see them continuing to change much either.  I've been reading a lot of the spell descriptions of the 51-60 spells and they sound good, but I want to see them in action before I can make any judgement.

To everyone that reads this.  What do you think? Am I off my rocker with these suggestions or is something that you feel might work out to better define us as the "Unsung heros" and "Masters of Taunt" that it has been said that we are.  Do you think that these suggestions would better us as guardians and give us an ability to shine or do you think that these suggestions would be giving us too much and bring us back to a pre-CU state?  Also, do you have anything that you want to add to these? Please, nothing too far out there, but subtle tweaks to this design? I'd like to hear it.

Thanks for reading this long post,

~Gladius

Guardian of Nejena

Divine Aura

[Pry]

Well, I will say what has been re-hashed a billion times, and hopefully someday it will sink in with someone

If you think about the nature of taunts as it relates to a real world situation, it's a means of saying to a mob, "Hey, your mother is ugly!" (for example) and have it get so angry at you that it turns on you instead.  You are taunting it to turn on you.  Now, this isn't a spell, or even really an ability in the Everquest sense (although I will admit that some people are good at pushing other people's buttons).  It's merely a way to make the mob more angry at you than it is at anyone else.

Tell me, how does one resist a taunt?  "I know you are, but what am I?" or does it just turn the other cheek and ignore your verbal barrage of hate?  But it's not the real world, it's everquest, and someone decided that the only way they could do this was to make it into a spell, because really that is what it is. 

To me, better to make hate generate on every hit.  Because of someone is kicking the crap out of me, I am certainly going to be very angry at them!  Problem is that everyone hits better than a Guardian!  So you can never generate enough hate just by hitting a mob and expect it to get angry enough at you.  "You hit like a little girl you Guardian, so I am going to ignore you".

In that respect, the obvious answer is to increase DPS, or make those magic based taunts not get resisted.  But that's silly, because a Guardian out DPS'ing a Warlock would just be...dumb and taunts shouldn't be spells that can get resisted.   Really the answer is to make the weapons you are using as a Guardian increase hate every time you hit.  And maybe this can be done by a weapon imbue, or to make weapons that Guardians wield have the ability to generate hate based on the number of times the Guardian hits the mob (he's not going to get mad at you if you aren't hitting him so it wouldn't "break" the game because you will miss sometimes).

Those abilities you experimented with, they should work in theory, but if you are made of paper they are useless for the reason that you said.  If a ranger has aggro, you are going to take some of their hits, but since you are made of Marshmallow Fluff (TM), you are going to take only some of their damage and that damage is going to be spread across two people now instead of one, which makes a healer's job oh so much more fun.  And since your taunts are resisted, and those healing spells are generating aggro, and you don't have DPS and....well you get the idea.

Why?  (Stay with me, I have a point).  Because people got on these boards and complained to Dev's that the Guardian having a whole heck of a lot of HP's was imbalanced, so the Dev's simple solution was to make Guardians have less methods of increasing their HP's, make mobs stronger, reduced the value of armor while generally keeping the same abilities that you had before only with lesser effect on the ones you need, and greater on the ones you don't.  And that turned you into a Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Fluff (TM) tank instead of one made of steel.

Therefore, Guardians are broken, and no matter what you do they are hopelessly broken beyond repair.  And that is why they don't get fixed, because they cannot be fixed post LU13 (important point! Will be on the next quiz!).  And as such, why you percieve there to be "flames" because there are people (such as myself) who realise that Guardians cannot be fixed, so the only alternative is to lament that SOE broke a pretty good game. 

I could go on and on, but I won't.  My advice (seriously, because I have a hard time being serious here) is to either accept that you are what you are and enjoy the game for what it is (a broken pile of rubbish) or hope that someone gets hired at SOE who understands ALL classes and reverts the game back to its original state while fixing what the real issues were with monks and bruisers (and mobs) and whoever else decided that their fun was dependant on who they could get nerfed to make themselves better. 

Controversial, I know, but sometimes the truth is controversial.  Good post, glad you took the time to write it. 

[Arpophyllum]

---

landru wrote:

 

1. Even with me starting the fight with a named (Frozen Cyclone - 49^^^) and having my brother wait till it was at 75% health while I taunted with every spell I had he peeled agro off of me within a couple rounds.  I was using the following spells:

1. Rescue - Apprentice II (To start the fight)
2. Assuage - Apprentice II (Cast this on my brother to help manage some agro)
3. Deafen - Apprentice IV (I hit this every time it was up)
4. Vengeful Strike - Adept I (I hit this every time it was up)
5. Maddening Defense - Master II
6. Protect - Appretice IV (hit this every time it was up ... and yes I know it wasn't a multi-mob encouter but I need the agro)
7. Taunting Assault - Adept I (Hit this every time it's up ... and yes I know it wasn't a multi-mob encouter but I need the agro)

Now my brother's toon hits really bloody hard with a T6 imbued bow, poisons, procs from weapons, etc. and pretty much knocked it from 75% to 40% health in his opening round of combat, but you'd think that I would be able to hold agro after hitting the mob and hitting as many taunts as I have.  I know that I don't have all the best spells.  (I wish that I did but don't have the money for it) We did end up beating the mob, but at the cost of the rangers life.

---

One suggestion would be to change how you use rescue: rescue literally moves you up the hate list. If you're duoing, that means you move to the top of the list. Most of the folks here would suggest using rescue as a desperation spell to get aggro after you lose it, not at the beginning of the fight. So, when your brother grabs aggro, you hit rescue and the mob will turn back to you. 

There's a higher level spell, reinforcement that might be more like what you're thinking of for the improved Rescue that is guardian specific. I think there are screenshots of that spell in the forum if you search for it.

[landru]

---

Prynn wrote:

Well, I will say what has been re-hashed a billion times, and hopefully someday it will sink in with someone

Trust me, it has sunk in, but it doesn't stop the persistant from trying.  I've put a lot of time an effort into my battletoads (guardian/templar) and I want to voice my opinion as well as get feedback from the rest of the guardian community (what's left of it anyway) to continue to hone the ideas and suggestions from everyone.

If you think about the nature of taunts as it relates to a real world situation, it's a means of saying to a mob, "Hey, your mother is ugly!" (for example) and have it get so angry at you that it turns on you instead.  You are taunting it to turn on you.  Now, this isn't a spell, or even really an ability in the Everquest sense (although I will admit that some people are good at pushing other people's buttons).  It's merely a way to make the mob more angry at you than it is at anyone else.

Tell me, how does one resist a taunt?  "I know you are, but what am I?" or does it just turn the other cheek and ignore your verbal barrage of hate?  But it's not the real world, it's everquest, and someone decided that the only way they could do this was to make it into a spell, because really that is what it is. 

To me, better to make hate generate on every hit.  Because of someone is kicking the crap out of me, I am certainly going to be very angry at them!  Problem is that everyone hits better than a Guardian!  So you can never generate enough hate just by hitting a mob and expect it to get angry enough at you.  "You hit like a little girl you Guardian, so I am going to ignore you".

I hear ya on this one.  It would be nice to have that kind of ability and/or another taunt that is based off of a shield bash of sorts.  Our DPS is in the tank (no pun) and hence a portion of our taunting (i.e. damage) is lessened. 

In that respect, the obvious answer is to increase DPS, or make those magic based taunts not get resisted.  But that's silly, because a Guardian out DPS'ing a Warlock would just be...dumb and taunts shouldn't be spells that can get resisted.   Really the answer is to make the weapons you are using as a Guardian increase hate every time you hit.  And maybe this can be done by a weapon imbue, or to make weapons that Guardians wield have the ability to generate hate based on the number of times the Guardian hits the mob (he's not going to get mad at you if you aren't hitting him so it wouldn't "break" the game because you will miss sometimes).

I don't believe that it's completely 100% DPS and Taunt related.  There does look like tweaks can be made to certain combat arts to make the overall picture better.  It will involve an almost complete overhaul of the guardian class, but it can be done.  There has been a lot of discussions on this and a lot of good suggestions, but unfortunately you have to dig through a lot of flames and other colorful posts to find them. 

Those abilities you experimented with, they should work in theory, but if you are made of paper they are useless for the reason that you said.  If a ranger has aggro, you are going to take some of their hits, but since you are made of Marshmallow Fluff (TM), you are going to take only some of their damage and that damage is going to be spread across two people now instead of one, which makes a healer's job oh so much more fun.  And since your taunts are resisted, and those healing spells are generating aggro, and you don't have DPS and....well you get the idea.

I wouldn't say we are complete "Marchmallow Fluff (TM)", there are times that I'm surprised that I tanked a certain mob.  That is IF (and a big IF) everything goes well. (I.E. Ranger not stealing agro, Taunts not get resisted a lot, etc)  It's just that our utility line deals out 125% damage across the entire group.  That's 25% more than if the mob was just hitting me.  Now take into account that you have a ranger meleeing and the cleric within AoE range and that one AOE combat art has hit for 125% of it's normal damage (25% to the ranger and 100% to the guardian.)  The suggestions I made off of this changes the combat art from a 125% damage to the group to extra hate generation for the guardian through the damage dealt by the other members of the group.  I do hear what you are saying and under the current setup I do agree.

Why?  (Stay with me, I have a point).  Because people got on these boards and complained to Dev's that the Guardian having a whole heck of a lot of HP's was imbalanced, so the Dev's simple solution was to make Guardians have less methods of increasing their HP's, make mobs stronger, reduced the value of armor while generally keeping the same abilities that you had before only with lesser effect on the ones you need, and greater on the ones you don't.  And that turned you into a Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Fluff (TM) tank instead of one made of steel.

Therefore, Guardians are broken, and no matter what you do they are hopelessly broken beyond repair.  And that is why they don't get fixed, because they cannot be fixed post LU13 (important point! Will be on the next quiz!).  And as such, why you percieve there to be "flames" because there are people (such as myself) who realise that Guardians cannot be fixed, so the only alternative is to lament that SOE broke a pretty good game. 

I completely agree with you that guardians in a whole are broke in their current state, but I don't believe that they are broke beyond repair.  Here is the puzzle of the situation as I see it:

Guardians, the benchmark for all other fighter classes when they were tweaking things for the CU.  (This is my theory) They brought all of the plate classes to the same level of mitigation and avoidance and adjusted the health pools into sub-class catagories. All the other classes got brought up to the middle ground that was set by SOE and the guardian was brought down to meet them.  (i.e. comprimise) but with the utility and DPS from the other classes remaining where they were they were now out shinning the guardian because of their unique abilities.  Pre-CU our utility was still not very good and really didn't have the flare that other fighter classes have.  (See: Unsung Heros) but Post-CU it made our utility overly apparent that it needed some tweaking along with our DPS.  Like I said, it's all about balance.  Pre-CU we gave DPS to get Mitigation, Post-CU we gave Mitigation but didn't recieve any DPS to compensate.  Utility hasn't changed much from Pre to Post CU so it wouldn't be fair to say that our utility caused this. 

The bottom line is that we were above the equal line and most other classes were below it.  We had things taken away but were given nothing to balance out the extent of abilities, dps, whatever else was taken away.  Surely it's fixable, but just tough to do since it would change the benchmark for all the other fighter classes.  So making one change could/would ripple into other classes.  Hence the reason that utility and/or DPS changes are necessary.  They've made it pretty clear that the Mitigation issue is something not worth fighting because SOE has dug in their heals on it, but in other areas we can make tweaks and changes to better our class.  So we aren't broke beyond repair, it's just not really easy to change the bar (see: standard) that all other fighters are based from without causing more issues with the other classes.

I could go on and on, but I won't.  My advice (seriously, because I have a hard time being serious here) is to either accept that you are what you are and enjoy the game for what it is (a broken pile of rubbish) or hope that someone gets hired at SOE who understands ALL classes and reverts the game back to its original state while fixing what the real issues were with monks and bruisers (and mobs) and whoever else decided that their fun was dependant on who they could get nerfed to make themselves better. 

Controversial, I know, but sometimes the truth is controversial.  Good post, glad you took the time to write it.

Thanks YOU for taking the time to read it and comment.  This is what I wanted from this post. 

---

[Raahl]

Never give up!  Keep telling Sony what is wrong with the Guardian class.  Though it may fall on deaf ears.

 

Very well written responses here.   There is a hope it will for the most part remain flame free.

 

 

[Mig]

You need to increase the quaility of your spells. I don't even bother with apprentice IV. I bet the adept 1 version to test it out, then get adept III or master if I like what it does. The difference between apprentice II and Adept I/III is huge. You will tank much better.Your combat arts are pointless, when I'm tanking I use my taunts as soon as the recast timer is up, my stuns and stifles, and that's about it. Even just using these you will still suck power like a two dollar [Removed for Content].

[Kain Hammersmith]

Good post man. I feel the same way about my lvl 51 Guard. I used to group with a few friends before the downgrade and they were Pally, Swashy, and Fury. We had plenty of DPS and enough healing for me because I could take the hits. Now with the same group I let the swashy tank cause she has almost the same Mit, and more Avoid, plus she doesnt need to taunt with all that DPS. Also, before anyone says that we the OP, or anyone should get some Adept 3s or some Masters, please understand that we may not have the time to harvest for hours on end to get the Adept 3s or the money to buy the masters. This game should never be based on someone that has full legendary and all Adept 3s or higher. Unfortunatly someone will come in and say that very soon. By the way, "Casual" doesnt mean stupid or someone that doesnt play that often, we just dont like to harvest for hours just to compete, or raid to be usefull. Let us play the way we like to, group with friends and kill things or do quests. Sometimes we may only have a few hours a week, or none at all for a week or so. RL is more important anyway, right?

Good luck fellow Guardians

too late ^

Message Edited by Kain Hammersmith on 12-09-2005 09:05 AM

[Mig]

---

Kain Hammersmith wrote:

By the way, "Casual" doesnt mean stupid or someone that doesnt play that often, we just dont like to harvest for hours just to compete, or raid to be usefull. Let us play the way we like to, group with friends and kill things or do quests. Sometimes we may only have a few hours a week, or none at all for a week or so. RL is more important anyway, right?

Good luck fellow Guardians

too late ^

Message Edited by Kain Hammersmith on 12-09-2005 09:05 AM

---

I totally agree.I think time = uber is compeltly idiotic. But unfortunatly that's the way the game is set up. There is no real skill, it's just how much time you can invest. You will not do well until you upgrade your gear.I will be happy if they just reduce the recast timer on some of our combat arts, and lower the power cost of our arts across the board.The biggest issue I have with my class right now is power consumption.

Message Edited by Migyb on 12-09-2005 12:17 PM

[landru]

---

Migyb wrote:
You need to increase the quaility of your spells. I don't even bother with apprentice IV. I bet the adept 1 version to test it out, then get adept III or master if I like what it does.

The difference between apprentice II and Adept I/III is huge. You will tank much better.

Trust me, I'm trying, but currently the broker is a little light on Adept Is for guardians other than our sentry line and few combat arts.  Taunts just aren't up there on the broker.  I'm currently working on my other half (my dual box templar) to become an alchemist and get him caught up to me in levels so I can make some Adept IIIs but it's been a long road.

Your combat arts are pointless, when I'm tanking I use my taunts as soon as the recast timer is up, my stuns and stifles, and that's about it. Even just using these you will still suck power like a two dollar [Removed for Content].
Well, I've been trying to use them for added DPS, but I've always felt that the power consumption of guardian combat arts were a little out of whack overall. (I can't speak for other classes)

---

Thanks you all for your input on this

[Figfore]

Right on the money with power loss. In my guild we have two monks who are 2 levels below me and when we group and pull a name, epic, or group mob I can taunt, taunt, and taunt to hold them but have an add or two and have to save a healer or bomber just one time and Im way out of power. Then I loose aggro, cant get it back and about 25% chance that monk dies I get back aggro  healer out of power raising monk and then I die  and healer dies. Off tanking  with an off healer we are the unsung hero. We can pull adds handle the extra hitpoints to save a bomber, healer. But as a tank we do need a little extra power or less power cost or a little more dps to help hold aggro cheaper on main mob. It is bad news when you have mob down to 26% life and your out of power,   The monk can tank  same mobs and hold aggro with half as much power use and I cant even offer to pull it off using HO's ending in a taunt. Oh by the way I have all adept 3 or master spells so you would think ever now and then i would turn mob, but only way is with rescue.  Its like we they have made us to be a guardian to just guard as a off tank. If monk is main tank and it starts going bad we can hit rescue and reinforcement to turn mob and save the day for all. Thats has been my only fun since LU13 because as a main tank all time I dont have the lasting power or dps. 

[landru]

---

Figfore wrote:
Right on the money with power loss. In my guild we have two monks who are 2 levels below me and when we group and pull a name, epic, or group mob I can taunt, taunt, and taunt to hold them but have an add or two and have to save a healer or bomber just one time and Im way out of power. Then I loose aggro, cant get it back and about 25% chance that monk dies I get back aggro  healer out of power raising monk and then I die  and healer dies. Off tanking  with an off healer we are the unsung hero. We can pull adds handle the extra hitpoints to save a bomber, healer. But as a tank we do need a little extra power or less power cost or a little more dps to help hold aggro cheaper on main mob. It is bad news when you have mob down to 26% life and your out of power,   The monk can tank  same mobs and hold aggro with half as much power use and I cant even offer to pull it off using HO's ending in a taunt. Oh by the way I have all adept 3 or master spells so you would think ever now and then i would turn mob, but only way is with rescue.  Its like we they have made us to be a guardian to just guard as a off tank. If monk is main tank and it starts going bad we can hit rescue and reinforcement to turn mob and save the day for all. Thats has been my only fun since LU13 because as a main tank all time I dont have the lasting power or dps. 

---

This seems to be a bigger issue that just with the guardians.  My pally friend is also always running out of power as well, but I do believe that it's something that needs to be addressed.  They have made some of the fights longer (not all of them, but some) and it seems that any of the big fights power consumption becomes a major issue overall.  Some of this is strategy and some of it is the fact that we (as well as other fighter classes) consume a lot of power to hold agro.  Considering that we can't rely on our Maddening Defense line to do the job for us and the lack of DPS we are consuming our power in single/group taunts as well as other combat arts just to hold agro when there are heavy hitters in the group.

 

Thanks again for your feedback on this.  it wasn't something that I orginally thought about.

 

 

[Mig]

Even with the illusionist, and troub, as well as a necro feeding me hearts (his heart spell is a master) I still run into power problems. It's broken.

[landru]

Well, as for some good news ...

 

Guardian changes:
- Goading Defense and its upgrades now place a heavy snare on the caster instead of a root.
- Entrench now breaks less often, costs less power, has a reduced casting time, and has a shorter reuse timer. Its duration now increases with level.
- Tower of Stone reduced the amount of shield damage received.
- Sentry Watch now has a reduced casting time, a larger radius of effect, and a shorter reuse timer.

 

The root of our HTL series is now a heavy snare, that's a nice change and entrench got some tweaking.  As for the other two, what do ya all think?

[Mig]

means nothing if we have no power

[Hend]

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Migyb wrote:
means nothing if we have no power

---

Well, I agree with you, but at least Entrench will use less power :smileywink:

Vork, 55 guardian

[Drulak]

It is very true that currently Guards have to use so much power to hold aggro.  Relatively a monk will hold aggro with 30 - 40% more power left at the end of a fight.

The fact that for a guard to generate hate , he must hit taunts - whereas a monk just does damage , is why this current fighter archetypal syste does not work.

If you imagine the big fighter standing at the front of the group - shouting at the foes that they should fight him , because he will deal the most damage aand therefore is the most fearsome adversary - well we have the taunts , but not the damage to back up those taunts , so mobs soon realise we are useless and go attack the scouts or mages or healers.

If someone is smacking into you - you will want to hit them back , way before attacking  someone standing behind you saying "your mum is a giraffe" and hitting you with a cotton bud.

But seriously CA's use less power than a taunt - WHY ??  one of them (CA) helps to kill the mob , the taunt does nothing but get mobs attention.  Why should getting the attention cost more power than hurting it. ? (plus this also is main reason why guards are so bad at soloing compared to brawlers.)

So if we cannot get lower cost taunts - give us much better CA damage and we'll use that to get aggro - thankyou.

 

[Wli]

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landru wrote:

Hey all,

 

 

1. Even with me starting the fight with a named (Frozen Cyclone - 49^^^) and having my brother wait till it was at 75% health while I taunted with every spell I had he peeled agro off of me within a couple rounds.  I was using the following spells:

1. Rescue - Apprentice II (To start the fight)
2. Assuage - Apprentice II (Cast this on my brother to help manage some agro)
3. Deafen - Apprentice IV (I hit this every time it was up)
4. Vengeful Strike - Adept I (I hit this every time it was up)
5. Maddening Defense - Master II
6. Protect - Appretice IV (hit this every time it was up ... and yes I know it wasn't a multi-mob encouter but I need the agro)
7. Taunting Assault - Adept I (Hit this every time it's up ... and yes I know it wasn't a multi-mob encouter but I need the agro)

Now my brother's toon hits really bloody hard with a T6 imbued bow, poisons, procs from weapons, etc. and pretty much knocked it from 75% to 40% health in his opening round of combat, but you'd think that I would be able to hold agro after hitting the mob and hitting as many taunts as I have.  I know that I don't have all the best spells.  (I wish that I did but don't have the money for it) We did end up beating the mob, but at the cost of the rangers life.

---

Yes, I do think there are some problems with the hate mechanics too. A lot have being said, and a lot will be said on this.

But, I need to put something about what went on with this description you gave. Hope you don't get this as a flame, it's not, just an observation.

Hate works like a "stack". Each toon fighting a mob will have a hate stack on the mob's "memory". The mob will directly attack the toon with the highest stack. This stack is a number, and each action a toon takes against the mob increase this number by X. That X,then, depends on what is done. Damage, 1 HP, genarates 1 hate. Debuff it's STR, and each point of STR generates 1+Y. Use Confront(adep I) and it generates 783 hate. Ok, thats just a simplified dexription and example, so I make my first observation:

On red, above, you used Rescue as starter. Rescue, at AdepIII, if I remember right, generates less than 300 hate. Not really a taunt tool, to use the way you used. What Rescue does is make your hate stack equal + 1 with the higher current stack, and puts that 300less hate on top of it. So, on certain part of the fight, you have 3000 hate on the mob's memory. The ranger hits for 1KHP, and he had a 2700 hate on the mob's memory. The mob turns to the ranger, as now he has 3700 hate, and you only have 3000. You hit Rescue, you will get 701(700 is the diference from you to the top hate on the mob's memory)+300 hate, going to the top. the mob's attention is yours again.

 

Now, second, the text in yellow above. Hate generation isn't a function only the TANK must atend to. Everyone in the group must observe and manage hate generation. Thats why healers have healing over time spells, mages have hate erasing spells, and so on. AND, the DPS classes must KNOW the damage level to apply, so he does his job but don't peel aggro form the tank. THAT'S his job, on the same level as is his job to drop the mob as fast as possible. So, you have an equation, where he balances de two variables, damage done and hate generated, regarding the tank's work.

Then, no way you would keep hate when the ranger, on his opening attacks, made more hate than you had acumulated during the start. AND, thats when you should have rescue up, you would have taken the mob's attention back, said to the ranger, EASY THERE trigger happy!!, and dropped the mob on your timing.

 

Saying all that (did ya really read?!), I must say that hate is one of the game mechanics, and so must be a challenge to the players. BUT, its off-balance, and this challenge is nearing the impossible line. Its very hard, I aggre, to keep aggro if the DPSs try their limits (on the equation I mentioned above, pushing de damage variable). They must be well below their capacity, if they don't want aggro on them.

[Gaige]

It amazes me that people see the game preLU13 as working as intended.  It was broken then, not now.

[Greyto]

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Gaige wrote:
It amazes me that people see the game preLU13 as working as intended.  It was broken then, not now.

---

The number of class fixes and issues still being discussed by many classes since LU13 would tend not to support that claim.

Gaige we all know you're happy with the way your class performs, funny how  that makes the game "working as intended" to you.

From my point of view yours is a selfish and self centered opinion.

[Gaige]

I'm not talking about my class, I'm talking about the game.

[dparker7]

And in a year when they've made enough changes that hte game doesnt really resemble the game it is now, will you still think that the game now is unbroken, or will the game then be unbroken?  Or is it only the things fanboi's want changed that equate to whether the game is broken or not

PS - Go away Gaige.

[Gaige]

I'll probably like the game until I don't like it anymore.

[DanielAtchison]

thats only because the made your class better than it was when they tank now Gaige. you have all the DPS you had and better defence(or whatever it is) we are talking about guardians not your class sorry.

 

And Gladius you need to get some spells upgraded and you will be able to do better but the guardian class still needs alot of work on SoE's part.

[Gaige]

We do lower DPS now, sir.

[boucani]

You might do less DPS, but monks still does a hell of good dps for a fighter, they have even defense then the guards, they can solo much better and when theyre not MT, they can bring good dps in a group, which a guard dont have.  In overall, monks are much more well-rounded then the guards, we guards need to be as well-rouded as the monks, ponto.

 

Rustan (Guard 52) Lavastorm

[Greyto]

---

Gaige wrote:
I'm not talking about my class, I'm talking about the game.

---

once again a convenient disregard to what was said to make another non point that says nothing.

last I checked classes were part of the game. A pretty vital part of the game as a matter of fact without the classes there would be NO game.

Since you obviously do not understand that this is a CLASS forum I can see how you would be confused when the subject of class balance is discussed.

Since again you seem unaware of what the topic of this thread is. Again I can see why you would be confused that we would be talking about the guardian class...Here....In the Guardian class forum.

And yes Gaige since you a monk and playing a well balanced class decided to post here . Once again I can understand why you are confused that someone would try and point that fact out to you while discussing their own balance issues. For their class. Guardian...Here...... in the Guardian forum.

So lets review:

Some classes are balanced (yours), some classes need to be worked on to achieve better balance (Guardians).

Unbalanced classes = an unbalanced game.

An unbalanced game = broken game.

Person who refuses to admit that unbalanced = broken because he does not want to be equal = selfish.

If you need any special tutoring I will be available for a small fee.

[Drulak]

i have listened to alot of the mumbo jumbo you spowt in our forums Gaige and sometimes i did believe you were really trying to help improve the game.  But no you have now really showed your true colours and where before i may have at least contemplated something you had written , i will now take everything spowted as incorrect disinformation and ignore it.

Pre LU13 guards thought game was ok - we wre balanced , you (monks) weere underpowered , you posted and posted and posted about the inbalance and how unfair the world was that guards were superior , and how broken eq2 was. To everyone else it was a perfectly balanced and working game.

Past Lu13 you now claim the game is not broken , why becuase the monk is so superior to the guardian ?  how can you say it is not broken , when we have exactly the same situation as we had pre LU13 just with roles reversed ? So in other words - Gospel according to Sir Gaige. "If the monk class is not underpowered then EQ2 is not broken"  -  well sorry buddy , but that just shows off how ignorant you are to the game from any other perspective than that of a monk.

 

Sorry folks , i am trying not to respond to Gaige , but after this beauty it was really hard not too.  But from now on i will stop , as he has proved he is not worth of arguing with.  lets get this post back on track with some nice ideas now

[ToonAr]

It could be argued that prior to LU13 the combat mechanic was 'broken' in favour of the guardian class. It can also be argued that post-LU13 the game is now 'broken' in favour of avoidence classes.

 

Bottom line is, the game is still broken in that aspect and needs to be fixed, regardless of who benefits from the inbalances created. And if I was completely honest, I do not think that will ever happen, simply due to the fact that SoE seem to have pretty much painted themselves into a corner with the whole archetype system. From the balancing perspective, they've created a monster.

Message Edited by ToonArmy on 12-13-2005 02:31 PM

[Pry]

The Combat "Upgrade" was no upgrade except to a small few.  The system today, is much worse than pre-LU13.  The declining server populations say so, the steady rise in WoW subscriptions say so, the eagerness of folks to switch to Vanguard says so.  You can sit around and thumb your rear end and say that it was always meant to be this way...

I say whatever.   I am still ticked that I played for a whole year working to get somewhere and now I have a completely useless toon with $300 or more invested in it.   That's right...USELESS.  Why is it useless?  Because it's not what I signed up to play, and I didn't get a choice it was just shoved down my throat like SOE is Stalin and I am a Russian Peasant.   It's like handing Mark McGwire a nerf bat to hit with, or telling Tiger Woods he can only use a Plastic Shovel to hit and putt with at the Masters. 

The game is hopelessly broken beyond repair.  The only way to fix it is to do what just happened in SWG (you know, that other brilliant SOE game that takes the collective computing power of all of the computers at NASA to run?), and just scrap the entire system and put in another. 

Because it's not getting through in English, here are some other languages and hopefully someone will catch on to the concept:

绝望地在修理之外

Hopeloos voorbij reparatie

Désespérément au delà de la réparation

Hoffnungslos über Reparatur hinaus

Απελπισμένα πέρα από την επισκευή

Disperatamente oltre la riparazione

絶望的に修理を越えて

희망 없 수선저쪽에

Impossìvel além do reparo

Безвыходно за ремонтом

Desesperado más allá de la reparación

If you can't get it after that, I don't know what else to tell you.  Unfortunately, there is no English-Dummy translator. 

[Gaige]

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Drulak wrote:

To everyone else it was a perfectly balanced and working game.

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Wow.  All those changes because of one player.  Interesting concept.