Incoming Guardian Love Pt 2 & 3

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Grouping, Raiding

Xelgad has been paying close attention to feedback on his Guardians: Requesting Feedback thread on the EQ2 Forums. His response to this feedback includes some additional tweaks we might see as a result of ideas submitted by players. These changes are expected after Game Update 57.

You can read his comments after the jump…

From July 16th:

Thank you all for the feedback so far!

Just to address one general point, we’re trying to take a more subtle approach in adjusting this class. Instead of making one or two drastic changes, we’re going for maybe a dozen smaller fixes and upgrades that result in a more balanced and better working Guardian. These fixes and upgrades will go beyond just utility. In that sense, it’s good to hear that these changes won’t immediately make Guardians desirable for every raid, since we certainly don’t want utility to be the driving force that gets Guardians into raids. Furthermore, please remember that “Got Your Back” and “Cripple” are still Echoes of Faydwer Advancements and need to be balanced as such. The fact that some of you like the “Got Your Back” change while others still prefer other options is a sign that the proposed change is in the realm of balance.

To clarify, the current plan for the Cripple debuff is a 75% reduction to target’s riposte damage. While we’re aware that Guardians are immune to riposte damage at end game, we still see a situational use for the debuff in cases where it’s dangerous or impossible for scouts and healers to position behind the target. The added damage component is not insignificant and has a very low chance to miss. More feedback on this would be welcomed.

While some of your other suggestions may make it in game, we especially like the idea to upgrade Guardian Sphere, since it could be a great way to provide some defensive utility that would be useful in heroic content. The tentative plan is to change Guardian Sphere into a group buff that grants all non-fighters a 50% (at master) chance to stoneskin. The Guardian will have a 25% (at master) chance to stoneskin him or herself. The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, the radius has been increased to 35 meters, the duration maxes out at 20 seconds and there is no limit on the number of stoneskins that can trigger during the duration.

From July 19th:

To clarify, the intercept portion has been removed from Guardian Sphere.

We have many more changes on the way. Here are some of them, but this list is still not complete.

Stability Tree:

  • Enhance: Intercept now gives 2% damage reduction per point in addition to the reuse reduction.
  • Enhance: Moderate now grants 1 crit bonus per point instead of additional hate gain reduction.
  • Enhance: Rescue has been moved to another tree and replaced with Enhance: Call of Shielding, which increases the effectiveness of that buff by 5% per point.
  • Enhance: Reinforcement has been moved to another tree and replaced with Enhance: Call to Arms, which increases the effectiveness of that buff by 7% per point.

The “Crippling” tree has been replaced with a new tree titled “Aggression.” This new tree is intended to provide extra threat generation, especially in cases where the Guardian doesn’t have full hate buffs.

Aggression Tree:

  • Enhance: Provoke, which grants 7% potency to the taunt with each point.
  • Enhance: Shout, which reduces the reuse of the ability by 0.4 seconds per point and improves the resistability by 2% per point.
  • Enhance: Hatred, which offers 2% hate mod per point.
  • Enhance: Rescue, which is the same as it was in the Stability tree.
  • Enhance: Reinforcement, which is the same as it was in the Stability tree.
  • Shoulder the Burden, which is a 10% hate siphon that can be placed on any group member.

Other AA changes:

  • “Double Attack” in the Guardian tree has been replaced with 3% chance to flurry and has been renamed to “Flurry.”
  • “Bind Wound” in the Warrior tree is now a 100% heal (still out of combat).
  • Enhance: Plant now increases the duration of the ability by only 0.4 seconds per point (see below).
  • “Aggressive Nature” now increases the threat generated by Hold the Line by 5% per point instead of adding a threat proc on blocks (see below).

Class ability changes:

  • Recapture now lowers the threat position of non-fighters in the Guardian’s group to the target encounter. While that effect is only groupwide, the raidwide effect that increases the threat position of other fighters is still present. The reuse on this ability has been increased to 45 seconds.
  • Iron Will now grants a reduction to snare effects on the Guardian in addition to the Stamina buff.
  • Plant has been redesigned. It is now a blue AE target lock with a small threat component. The base duration of the target lock is 6 seconds with the level 90 master. The base casting time remains at 1 second, and the recast is still 60 seconds.
  • Hold the Line now has the “Aggressive Nature” effect automatically built into the ability. It’s as if you spent the 5 AA points in the Shadows tree without actually having to spend the points. “Aggressive Defense,” a Berserker ability, recieved the same change.

Keep the feedback coming! The discussion has obviously shifted beyond just utility, and we’re looking for feedback on all of these changes. Any other suggestions for the class are welcomed as well, but understand that we are focusing mostly on more general changes rather than class or AA ability changes to solve the survivability problem.

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Comments (10)

  • Jonaroth

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    well i guess i better level a guardian now as that will be the new SK for SF expansion

    Reply

  • Phujiak

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    how do you figure that? these all appear to due nothing but bump up the utility and threat generation of the guardian…I don’t see anything that is going to affect dps…guards may be able to do room pulls in Vig zones and “survive” and hold aggro off locks for a few seconds…but the 30-40K dps of the SK will be sorely missed when the mobs don’t die fast enough and they wipe the group….

    And as for raids…again…sks/zerks can have as much hps, mitigation and avoidance as a guard…plus dps two to three times more…so why have a guardian again?

    I personnally don’t have any aggro/threat problems on my guard as is…maybe because I have some common sense and know how to play him. IMHO, these changes will truly do nothing to make the guardian more desirable in raids…Xelgad even says that…just not fixing the underlying problem and that is every class should have at least one good individual use. Guards last that in TSO….

    Reply

  • Phujiak

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    And furthermore…maybe I am missing something…but I don’t use cripple…and taking 9% DA away for 3% flurry just means I have to go find DA somewhere and most likely decrease potency/critbonus…so yeah…great suggestions…

    Reply

  • Quabi

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    The only changes that will make much difference at all, and even then only really in heroic content, are Recapture, Plant, and Guardian Sphere. The long list of other changes will only have a very small impact, if they’re even noticable at all.

    I think his more subtle approach actually has a chance of fixing the class without OPing it, but it is funny to see players react to this method. Some Guardians see that most of the individual adjustments are insignificant and conclude that the revamp is a waste of time, while non-Guardians just look at the long list of changes and assume the class is going to be overpowered.

    Reply

  • Bjara

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    @Phujiak

    3% flurry is way better than 9% DA, even if you do not have DA capped like most 90 melees

    Reply

  • Phujiak

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    @ Bjara

    Do you know how flurry works? Obviously not…

    Flurry — results in 2 to 4 additional mainhand weapon swings. These swings do not proc additional procs.

    So at max, 3% flurry can result in 12 (9 on average) more mainhand weapon swings w/o procs per 100 auto-attacks.

    9% DA will proc off mainhand and offhand swings resulting in 18 more swings per 100 auto-attacks for a dual-wielding Guardian…

    Now give me an additional 5% AE Auto-attack instead of the 9% DA…and I will be impressed….

    Reply

  • Bjara

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    But still, 100% DA is easy to get, havent seen many items/skills/AAs that give Flurry though

    Reply

  • Samous

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    So that will just leave the Zerker in a world of hurt as the gimp?

    Reply

  • Phujiak

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    @ Samous

    Are you implying that zerkers are under-powered? I don’t know where you play EQ2…but most guilds I know are running zerkers as MTs and guards that used to be MTs are switching over…even after SOE started talking about “Guardian Love”…they see the changes as frivolous and realize they have to move on. A very good friend of mine went from 15K zone-wide DPS in Library on his guard to 25K zone-wide DPS…and that is solo btw…his mit, avoidance, and overall survivability didn’t change a bit…he argues it got better actually…80% dmg reduction for the next 7 hits for a guard vs. 50% dmg reduction for ~30 seconds for a zerker…

    Reply

  • Samous

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    Oh im not implying, most of the guilds I know run paladins are MT and Guards second to them.

    Reply

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