Incoming Guardian Love
Xelgad has taken another measured step towards collecting player feedback. Last month, it was a shoutout for Top End Guilds to post some of their highest parses. Today’s request appears to be some light finally being shone on guardians after nearly 2 years at the lower middle of the “fighter” pack in tanking ability.
Greetings Guardians!
First off, allow me say that we understand that the class is being outshined at the moment, and we’re working on it. It’s going to take more than just one change to get Guardians back to working as a strong class again. I’m not going into details yet, but we do have a mechanics change in the works that will at least help a bit to distinguish Guardians as a more defensive tank. Even with that, the class is currently lacking in other areas, including threat generation and utility.
It’s utility that we want to focus this thread on. We want to bring Guardian utility up to the level that the other fighters bring to a group or raid. We have three tentative changes that will be going to test soon:
- Got Your Back will become raidwide.
- Cripple will become a maintainable debuff with a damage component.
- Call of Shielding will also increase the health of the raid. The level 87 version at master will amount to around 1,000 hit points.
We’re looking for feedback on these ideas, and we’re open to boosting Guardian utility even a bit further, especially in heroic content. I want to emphasize that we’re not trying to turn Guardians into plate-wearing Bards or anything of the sort. However, I do want to try to focus this thread on the utility aspect of the class.
UPDATE: These changes will come after Game Update 57.
Tags: class balance, guardian
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Comments (15)
Lejoni
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“…we’re not trying to turn Guardians into plate-wearing Bards…”
Funny. In Original EverQuest Bards dose wear plate.
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Ebofu
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just make death march raid wide and be done with guardians, the current player base pretty much has.
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Lomax
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Well two of the above three changes only effect raids, and the other one makes no difference to their problems in the group game. The only positive I get from this is that they are at least listening.
As for buffing SK’s to get done with Guardians, that’s an extremely bad thing for the player base. People get excited when they pick up EQ2 and see so many races and so many classes they can play, when it turns out that only a few of those classes are any good we’ve got a much smaller player appeal.
The fact that SK’s outnumber all other classes and crusaders are more then half of all tanks should be a warning sign that something is wrong with the game, and we are probably losing subs/not keeping new people on because of it.
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Ebofu
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the real warning sign is that you didnt pick up the sarcasm
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Quesera
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Might be because subtleties like sarcasm are hard to pick up in text..
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Vuko
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With all the other tank classes now having heal abilities, the guard is actually now the squishiest tank class in raid against a mob with pure melee (ie stoneskins aren’t effective). Some sort of heal utility would balance us?
Also I suggest taking a look at sentry watch for utility. Right now it IS usable in heroic zones situations against non aoe mobs to make sure you are picking up damage, but other than that, you can’t cast it in BG, and you can’t cast it in raids on any usable mob, as it’s almost guaranteed to kill ya.
If you like the idea of stoneskins so much on a guard, change that one into a group stoneskin.
As for Got your Back, going raid wide with that will only convince a guardian to care if it is ALL players, not just fighter only. Just sayin…
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Samous
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Still waiting for SoE to pull the two warriors in line with the crusaders.
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Darkcircle
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I also would love to see the Warriors see a boost in there ability to hold hate. I think that a different system of threat generation should be made up for the two classes. This way it may open doors to allow new direction in abilities and game play feel.
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Xanten
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got your back is usless it only protects fighters, make it for the entire group and it might be worth it, id love to see an extra trigger added to Unyealding Will and make it untill cancled buff that way we have a decent survivability skill, even if the extra trigger comes by a red adornment. Also Recapture needs to be fixed. A hp boost to call of sheilding is Nice, but c’mon we have battle tactics just increase the hp gain by that. IF your gunna add something to Call of sheilding add a potency increase or Crit Bonus.
Not sure about Cripple becoming a maintainable de-buff, seem a bit pointless, especially if you have a Dirge or Troubee in your group, as they can de-buff without any problems, Were a tank class adding a de-buff is turning us slightly towards the SK Side of it. and personally i love not being an SK.
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PK
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That’s what they tried with the Fighter Revamp a while ago.. and ‘everyone’ hated it (I never got a chance to test it but the forums were full of vitriol)
I just hope that they stick to their word that rather than nerfing other classes, they’ll bring guards more in-line with SK’s.
What other classes need love these days? Besides PVE Rangers?
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Feldon
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Yeah, Fighter Revamp 2.0 would have largely removed other players from threat generation and agro control and turned fighters into a windup toy just pressing Taunt Taunt Taunt Taunt Taunt Taunt.
Hopefully this is enough to make Guardians good, but not back to Kunark where they were the de facto tank.
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Thorin
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Would be nice it guardians were more in par like the warriors in EQ1, where taunt took aggro away from anyone at anytime and were always on the top of the hate list bar none.
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craig mason
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Ok, Where to begin. as one of the last top end raiding guardians, and with good reason, I would like to suggest 3 key changes that promote self survivability more so than other stuff. Zerkers have adrenaline which is 50 % damage negated, also a zerk heal, and 5 % static damage dump on whirlwind mythical proc. On top of this they have preverance, a self heal buff all the time, and then also the zerker heal buff. you compare that to guardians tower of stone which is only 4 triggers, last mand standing which is 7 triggers, and a proc to 5 % damage dump it hardly adds up. I would like to see last mand standing changed to duration, defensive minded have an added componet on it to mitigate a % of damage , and our already 100 % useless mythical buff to be 5 % constant damage reduction instead of a proc. i really like the fact or rumor i have heard about taking the intercept out of sphere and also making plant an aoe taunt instead of the useless whatever it is now. as far as changing the crippeling line and the got your back aa’s its totoally irrelevant. no guardian specs into either tree, and still wont. how about maybee changing our worthless proc on our mythical that never happens to work at the right time to aoe auto attack so we can stop speccing that god damn agility line and toss those aa’s into mitigation. i am very greatfull for the upcoming changes, as its much needed. but turning us into utility instead of the hard tank which were meant to be is dishearteneing still. with how easy it is to cap mitigation as a paladin zerker and sk in raid settings with the near gear and buffs guardians right now have the worst survivability and the least dps. maybee think about boosting the survivability and ability to hold aggro while doing so instead of turning us into a fighter aoe and raid buff hooker.
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Vardeth
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Funny you mention changes to guard abilities irrelevant due to useless AA lines, yet you still list preverance as zerk fluff ability, truth be told that aa line sucks as well, and i doubt any zerk is using that…
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Repel
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Guardians are being put on the side lines. I don’t know exactly why but I can probably think of a few. One imaginary example is that there time has not come yet, “like the Shadow-knights in the past.” I deleted my Guardian do to the lack of AoE Threat control in groups/raids, and slow paced solo killing, “compared to a Crusader.” Also not being wanted or accepted as the Main-Tank in raids do to lack of survivability, and mostly -DPS problems-“not gear or -utility-“. Changing a few buffs is not going help the Guardian out. Unless the damage and survivability rate goes up for the Guardian not for the entire raid. So they can be compared more toward what Crusaders can do on the off hours of not grouping and/or raiding. Buffing up the enitre raid keeps the Guardian the same as is…… Then, make the Guardians do what there suppose to be designed to do. Take some massive damage in raids groups and also solo play by bumping up “there” survivability rate, “not raid wide utility.” The raid does not need any more buffs.
Some reasons why Guardians are not the Main-Tank is because of resists. One example is that some raid/group mobs reflect Physical mêlée damage done to them. I think that by making the guardian, immune to mobs that reflect damage back onto the caster would help. They could easily put that ability on the mythical weapon since the Guardian mythical sucks so bad a little boost to it would not hurt. I know on mobs like this we either have really good healers, or one example is a Paladin, that has his auto-attack turned off and rely on the, “Amends, hate transfer, increase hate gain from other classes and really low DPS so that threat will not be drawn of the main-tank.” Another example is that the magical resists of Guardians are not equal to that of the Crusader class. Crusaders seem to be able to take alot more magic type damage from mobs then that of most Guardians. Guardians should have a ability that reduces all magic damage done to them. For example, the magic absorption cap is some what around 65%-80%? I cant remember exactly, but make it so Guardians have a natural higher Magic damage absorption like 80-85%. They should be able to take the hits. Not get blown away by the AoE’s Im a little off on my stats I have not played in a while do to College and the Guardian sucking so much after the Kingdom of Sky days.
Another upgrade that I’d like to see done on the Guardians is to have there damage increased. There is only a few ways I can see fit to increase the Guardians damage is just making the Guardians have some type of auto-attack multiplier buff added onto the Guardian. Adding another AoE “area of effect” ability would help on the multiple mobs. Also, on the warrior tree AA “Reversal” make it so it don’t require a shield. Look at what the AA says, “On parry, on parried, on ect.. ect.. and the only thing that really requires a shield is the proc “on successful Block” part. Why does this ability require a shield? Any way, I believe that might be a small DPS boost to duel wielding. They could also make it a AoE damage proc kind of like one of the Berserker’s buffs. When the Reversal AA Procs it would proc the damage in a AoE instead of just single target. That would make the Warrior AA ability Reversal of Fortune a AoE Taunt proc.
Another idea is that SoE could get rid of the knock down part of, “belly smash” on the wisdom warrior AA line. Then make the, “seasoned veteran” a flurry instead of the increase DPS. Move the increase DPS to the Intel tree. Stack that with, “acceleration strike, and also slayers speed” so you get both the DPS and Haste. I don’t know its just an idea. Change, “tactical wisdom” so it adds the Stats to both Offensive and Defensive Stances instead of just 1.
On the warrior strength line, “executioners fury” remove the 50% Health cap and just have it like a permanent buff. Then change the Mêlée critical part of to, “increase auto-attack multiplier of caster by a amount that scales to level” The mêlée critical on executioner’s wrath needs to be changed . It is useless at 90 by what I been reading on most content. Could be changed to a high damage force target // root // Drag the enemy taunt that lasts for 10 seconds or something else besides some extra critical for one attack.
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