Guardian combo&feat design is total failure

Guardian has too many useless combos, feats and inefficient mechanics

First, i talk about basic combos

Flexus strike - what is this garbage? I dont find any useful scenario of using this. It has 40s cooldown for little stamina stuff. Dont waste our combo slot like this

Dulling blow - another garbage from basic combo set. It has 0 dps for nothing. Only scenario of using this is when your mobs have tripple shield on leftside in PVE. Come on. Add dot or armor debuff on it. Or just boost its pathetic dps.

Guard - good unless you’re switching to s&s. Why do we lose the armor buff whenever we switch? Maybe getting 10% armor buff on s&s can be too good, But then give the buff back when we switch back from SS to polearm. Currently it prevents flexible weapon switching play. Not good combo design.

Second, feats

All the feats that add 1% dps on overreach&FA - it provides 0 when you have poor base dps on these combos.

Morale boost - useless feat coming from useless combo. I cant even talk about it because its totally forgotten feat

Enrage spirit - it adds only 0.15% weapon damage on each wraith stack. It means you only get 3% on 20stacks per feat while you can get static 3% from general feat. Getting 20 stack takes 100years and in pvp its even worse. You will not able to get above 6~8 stacks in pvp because it has really short duration(10s). Just remove wraith and merge it to vengence.

Call to arms - group buff but you cant get the effect from it. What a joke. Those faliure feat design led guardian to the lowest dps in the game.

Titanic smash - reduce it’s cooldown to 10s so we can actually stack the debuff that is only way to boost our low dps at this moment.

Revenge - 5% of guard’s retaliatory damage? Lol the base damage is very low and its only 40% chance. You will add ‘1’ expectation damage from being hit. Total failure. Do some math devs.

Disarming aggression - 4% ‘combo’ damage boost for 15s 45cd. So you get 1.33% ‘combo damage’ in average. Trash.

Sweep the field - let me ask. What is the purpose of increasing knockback distance? Is it for trolling? To make someone falls from rooftops?

Skewer - make it back to insta combo. While conq can snare anybody at anytime instantly, dt can snare anybody at anytime in range, we have to perform 1 step combo which has 50s cooldown.

Riposte - 255 dps is not worthful reward for evading an attack. It should be 400 dps atleast

Hateful vengence - once again. Only 3% weapon damage at full stack of vengence. Vengence is easier to stack than Wraith so its slightly better than Enrage Spirit, but still when you can get static 3% weapon damage from general tree, this is bad.

And boost polearm weapon’s damage. Polearms should have atleast 5% more damage than 2hb/2he.

I know funcom doesnt care about the game anymore but do something on this class its been 6 years

2 Likes

They can’t boost polearm damage because then occasionally someone would get killed by a guardian in PvP, and there would be endless complaining in the forums until it was nerfed again. (This is not speculation, it has happened several times before.)

5 Likes

BV nerf in update2.1 is the worst change to guardian imo, it totally destroys the balance of guardian’s aggro level between conq/dt. Nerf the BV dmg in pvp is ok but not in pve
without the BV before 2.1, there is no way for a guard to do aggro swap with conq/dt.

152 to 158 wont change anyrhing guard will keep the lowest dps with it anyway

BV was one of three positive thing from guardian in the time.
Anothet one was spell damage boost from frenzy stance. Reckoning damage was pretty good with it but they nerfed it. The funny thing is that frenzy stance nerf is caused by guardian not dt. When dt melted down every class in a 5 seconds with vom.
And the last one is STA. STA reactive damage was pretty buggy but it was the last positive thing from guards but funcom took it too.
Prime initiative was mediocre but they nerfed it twice without any reason
Funcom just took everything from guard, now its a naked poorman

1 Like

The funny thing is that while almost every point here is valid, Guards still have their place tanking anything that isn’t susceptible to extra magic damage. That being said, I’d kill to have a separately viable Tempest tree again.

Agree on this. Guardians are fine, and in T5+T6 do their job perfectly fine with being able to eat dmg, but also share good buffs with the group.

Shinken also said it perfectly I think some time ago. Guardians are the best progression tanks. Sadly, there haven’t been much of those in the recent times.

Whenever DTs (and good Conqs) gets overgeared the Guardians just gets indirectly worse.

1 Like

Agree that the poletree could have a re-work for PVE. Its so bad that it doesnt even have a nish purpose over sword and shield tanking, and the damage as “dps” is very bad due to its crit dependency. Across both speccs the guardians only purpose in the game (PVE) is to fill the void before DT and Conq get enough survivability without compromising away aggro. If you by any chance are just starting to raid t5 and t6, for the love of god tank with the guardian, before its too late :joy:

I see some mentions of pvp in this thread!

let me break it down for you. guardian is, has been, and will continue to be an amazing pvp class. just because you preload counterweight and hit someones shielded side for 100 a hit while never leaving defensive stance, does not mean the class does not succeed.

another fun point. clearly you do not remember the days of 8k bloody vengeance combos on people with 4000 hp total. guardian’s nerfs were completely deserved, and from what i hear it’s still the best pve tank for the majority of raid encounters.

The fact that somehow it’s thought that guardian is a “weak pvp class” shows that you’re all basing your opinions on duels, or have little to no pvp experience.

hur dur my tank with 8 cc’s and huge team buffs can’1 consistently 1 shot other players anymore now i can only 1 shot barbs 25% of the time. muh prime initiative doesnt do 3k damage as well as silence people anymore wtf. Prime initiative was the only guardian feat used until they nerfed it because it was completely and utterly broken and, in no way, shape, or form, fun to play against.

Let’s list the ways you, too, can help your teammates on a Guardian, even without Bloody Vengeance and Prime Initiative one shotting people!

  • Skewer any target instead of forgetting this combo exists! Don’t forget to put all 3 points in this feat, so that you’re not giving someone a free immunity. It also hits really hard, so enjoy your 2k skewer crits!
  • Overwhelming shout is a great CC that you shouldn’t use on single targets trying to run away! Baffling! Maybe help the clothy with 3 barbarians and a conq wailing on him? That might be a good spot to use it! It stuns! It fears! It does everything!
  • Stunning charge is an interrupt that you can use to help your teammates from across the battlefield! Wow! It’s an instant stun at range on a tank class!
  • Shield Strike is actually a very quick stun! You can use this to help your teammates (who? you’re on a team idiot, how about helping that healer who’s been blue healing before getting farmed by the aforementioned 3 barbarians and conq)
  • Shield slam is actually an amazing snare (60%! even cynara could catch a target with that sort of snare on them!). While difficult to do without breathing through your nose, you can actually use this combo purely as a snare even if you’re mouthbreathing.
  • Pray to RNGesus and hope that your counterweight manages to crit for 20k instead of the normal 10k damage it does.
  • Use your buffs! Yes, click your buttons! There’s not a whole lot else going on with guardian, so click your three buttons and keep spamming counterweight!
  • When you fatality someone from 100%, wait to pleasure Mr. Johnson and the Juice Crew until after the game ends. Then, report directly to Cynara, and inform him about how terrible your class is, and how you had to outplay your opponent so hard to land that 2 step combo that instantly killed another player.
  • Use Stand Your Ground! Wow, a teamwide knockback immunity. I know its hard to believe, but knockback is actually really good. Why you ask? Well, the legend says that if you wait until you have multiple teammates in position before using a knockback, you can actually kill that target before they stand up!
  • Stop preloading combos and actually land white hits! This will help you actually do damage!
  • Switch into frenzy stance occasionally! Did you know that frenzy stance makes your class actually do damage? I know, coming out of your defensive stance shell is scary, but you can do it, trust me! If things get too hot, you can always go back into defensive and run in a striagh tline away with 10% increased movement speed. I guarantee if you dont wait until you have 5% hp left you’ll probably get away!

Or you can just spam counterweight and still get a metric ton of kills! It really doesn’t matter! You’re a guardian in Age of Conan!

You’re exagerating here. If people had 4k hp, that means it was pre 1.5 patch and BV was doing about 2k dmg then when swapping to polearm (s&s was super good back then), which was still super op and even after that BV would do 3-4k, not 8k, but yes guard was pretty insane and BV getting nerfed into the ground was a good change. As for pve, guard is the worst pve tank, pre-t5 the other tanks don’t come close to DT, and in t5/6 guard doesn’t come close to conq’s or dt’s aggro generation.

This opinion can also be based on pub minis, which are 99% of the pvp going on and i would argue guard is the worst class in the game when it comes to those.

What? PI was doing a static amount of damage which was 1k-ish, couldn’t crit and would only interrupt, not silence. What are you even remembering?

PI was the only perk used because you didn’t need more damage. Storm strike used to hit like a truck on 15sec cd, BV was insane and on 8sec cd and just molding PI with those would kill or almost kill most classes.

Honestly PI getting reverted to the old state would be something really cool to add to the current guard.

Honestly I would argue you should only put 1 point in skewer and trying to not use it on people without snare immunity. Even with 3 points, it’s a pretty pathetic 7sec snare.

GL with that vs a team consisting of conq, 2x barb, BS, pom and necro.

In short stop exaggerating. I still think guard’s main problem is a lack luster tempest tree that requires a full remake and/or s&s combos being pathetic damage wise. One of the easiest ways to “fix” guard imo would be to buff most 1h combos (and tbh i’m actually thinking in the realm of at least doubling their dmg) and nerfing some of the temporary power gains (battle cry, brutal destroyer, powerhouse, but not call to arms, i like the idea of a buff that only benefits the team dmg wise) to not lead to some stupid 1shots while nerfing their innate hate to not break guard in pve. Sure this would not help polearm guard at all, but i think we’ll sooner see pigs fly than a remake of an entire feat tree.
Another cool idea would be making strike and guard buff be a proc around the guard, so that anybody close to it gets the dmg deflection and maybe adjusting the cd to reflect that, but i can see how this would be asking too much from funcom.

2 Likes

but in all seriousness, Stygga has some points even if he did exaggerate

also buff evade/immunity from tempest + riposte+intimidating shout for agro and it would be good

let me break it down for you. guardian is, has been, and will continue to be an amazing pvp class.

Well, I don’t play PvP so it doesn’t matter to me whether guardian is good in PvP or not. What I dislike is when PvP-related complaints cause the class to get nerfed in ways which affect me in PvE. Sure, the guardian may still be an OK tank in group and raid dungeons, but it’s pretty damn miserable for solo PvE, mostly because of its low damage, and I distinctly remember that each of those PvP-motivated nerfs made my solo PvE experience worse.

4 Likes

Another fix for guard in PvE would be ferocity having meaning for melees (no penalty for hitting multi-targets) - so close, but so far away it seems.

I don’t see the PvE complaints towards the guardian. It’s a very legit tank that doesn’t need much gear. Yes the damage is abysmal, but with proper healers, it can take a hell of a beating. It’s been repeated over and over, it’s the DT and conq that has become anomalies, not the guard (except for many parts of the tempest tree - but useless feats in AoC isn’t exclusive to guardians)

1 Like

I get your point, but I dont see them nerfing dts (dont see them doing anything :money_mouth_face:), If they did that, half of the raidfinders wouldnt have good enough tanks to function, the class is a shortcut to higher level of tanking without knowledge. I think it would be better to buff the guardian so it can be a alternative to the other tanks. On the other hand every raidforce have Guardians and they are good enough to have spots in raids since you can make use of their unique sellingpoints, but would be fun to have use for them in other things aswell.

1 Like

It would be tremendous if guards could do more DPS while tanking. Why would anyone pick a guard for their 6-man when they can get a DT who will make a meaningful damage contribution?

2 Likes

To buff the barbs/sins etc with battlecry + call to arms. Kinda have to sack individual dps to gain higher overall dps for the group. + decent CCs and good burst aggro on aoe is alright for master timers.

If i tell you that this is the reason i replaced my first character in AoC lvl 65 Shield Guard?
I wanted pure ‘‘raw’’ melee, doesn’t matter if it’s a long fight or not because i tried and i can’t roll other archetypes. Suits my Jarhead mentality.

I got into DT tanking and into his magical abilities without intention. Eventually i liked it. If the Guardian wasn’t nerfed i would never have replaced him.
I just don’t have the motivation to roll a Guardian again especially since i want to PvP as well with this class. But the most important reason i need more aggresion out of my tanks. Guard DPS lacks this unfortunately.

I think that explains everything why Guardian population is diminished.

1 Like

Because it literally doesn’t matter unless your wanna do a time trial and guards are often easier to heal for lower geared healers

that would be relevant if tanks actually tanked mobs in timers :stuck_out_tongue: fact is you loose one players damage by bringing a guard, which is sad

I guess guard is the only tank that can’t use endfeats in both the two different feat trees, so it’s a bit unfair for them. (PvE)

But it’s unlikely that PvP is the reason why Lighting reflexes is so bad
 (don’t remember the testlive forums back then) It should 100% stack with redoubt and subterfuge
 also have immunity levels on all the feats, not just subterfuge.

1 Like