Everyone knows and will certainly agree that the Guardian is one of the classes that has been completely forgotten and left alone with the PvP and PvE trees not working well. In this topic I wanted to include my ideas for changes in both PvP and PvE. At the beginning, it writes down the problems arising from the Tempest tree and the overall polearm game. The tempest tree has been designed to avoid enemy attacks and theoretically allows it, but in practice it is quite different because some skills simply do not work as it should and need change. This applies to playing PvP as well as PvE.
Before I start, I will tell you what problems guard PvP has and what PvE has.
PvP:
In comparison to other tanks on pvp, guardianās damage only come from two things. With combinations and Reckoning skills.
Lack of any dots, and the only one that comes out of the Intimidating Shout skill, deals damage that is funny in a cooldown of this skill that is not used at all, because it is weak.
Useless Lightning Reflexes skill into the pvp game does not give us practically anything because it lasts only 8 seconds, and the chance of dodging is only 35%. So avoiding anything while skill is active is really rare, or bordering on a miracle.
No breakdown of armor or something similar from skills.
We donāt have any group-wide buffs.
PvE:
The main problem of the guard on the pve are the skills that are not working well and the lack of any dots and also we dont have the skills that would help us build the agro when we need it.
Useless combo - Riposte
Useless combo - Bloody Vengeance - which gives us nothing but resets Vengeance stacks from 10 to 0.
No breakdown of armor or something similar from skills.
We donāt have any group-wide buffs.
We are not able to evade attack or itās very hard.
So letās start with a tree that does not work well in practice.
Storm Blade
You see we have only 6 procs per minute. It does not give us practical anything in pvp and pve. My suggestion is to change procs from 6 to 12/15. Damage is decent from one proc, itās like 130 damage if I remember correctly.
Ability - Intimidating Shout
Duration of full feated Intimidatong Shout is 12 seconds. But we have 1 minute cooldown, also the damage is very weak. So during 12 seconds this skill will do ~700/800 damage. My suggestion is to increase damage a little, let wounds crit and change CD from 1 minute to 25 seconds.
Ability - Dissarming Agression
Okay the next super imba forgotten ability. As you see we have 12% more damage for 15 seconds when we have 3 points feated. -30% hate is good for me because guardian on frenzy eazly pulling agro on dps but the important thing is why this ability is not group-wide? Juggernaut tree has some group-wide abilities which increase our and group damage. On polearm we have nothing like that. My suggestion is to make it group-wide buff which give us 5/10/15 % damage and for groupā¦ i really donāt know what percentage will be okay. Maybe 15% more weapon damage melee/range + little armour penetration and 5% more spell damage + spell penetration? it will be smilar to Battle Cry from Juggernaut tree.
Combo - Riposte
Another proof that the tree is broken and the skills are forgotten. This combo doing nothing and we have to evade attack to do more damage from that combo, also! If we evade attack description says āinflicts greatly inceased damageā what is lie. My Suggestion for this combo is to give it high agro generate like Shield Slam from Juggernaut tree and normal damage without any evade.
Ability - Lightning Reflexes
The main perk, which describes what this class was created for it does not work properly and therefore gives us nothing. Soā¦ we have only 35% evade during the 8 seconds. On pvp during 8 seconds we are not able to avoid ANYTHING because we have only 35% evadeā¦ On PvE in practice, it does not work as it should be because we must have agro to evade then generate more agro, but how to generate agro when we must avoid attacks which is impossible while we are not tanking? My suggestion for this ability is to give it back 75% evade or maybe 80/85%, also basically add some % additional damage + percentage hate generation to this skill. So this skill would work so that when we need agro we simply use it, gaining + hate and damage, and during tanking it would simply give us evasions. Itās the same as with Mitraās skill, which gives you 20% damage deflection to protect agroholder, but we can also use it on someone to who we want to increase damage.
So, as you can see, most of the skills and combinations do not work properly and putting them into practice are useless and really need changes.
Now a few changes to the combinations that we have in the base.
Combo - Guard
My suggestion for this combo is possible to apply dot to target instead of retaliatory strikes.
Combo - Disable
Very fast combo very good in pvp but suggestion for this is to apply torment or -armour.
Combo - Bloody Vengeance
Cherry on the top of guardian skills. This instant skill reseting our vengeance stacks and description is a big lie, We donāt have increased attack and we donāt have have any damage bonus, so? My suggestion is to donāt let this combo reset our Vengeance stacks because in PvE itās useless, also give it more hate generate.
Thatās all I wanted to write about. I am eager to discuss and I will be happy to listen to your ideas about the guardian and what changes he could get. Everything is focused on adding a few dotās instead of increasing the base damage so that the guardian could be too strong on pvp, and fixing most of the skills from the tree. I apologize for my English, I helped myself with a translator.
Like in a raid not all classes serve all roles. Guard is incredibly sturdy in pvp simply can not die. If he would be killing machine as well whats the sense NOT playing a guard. So accept some classes have more support characterā¦
Btw i think you do well in some of your pvp vids i have watched.
Guardian dying same like a cong and dt but donāt have healing like a dt, amd bubbles like a cong and his all abilities are broken but i think you see it but still doing good job.
Guard was nerfed too much and forgotten for years. I hope my suggestion clearly say what we need. We are talking only about guardian here because i have most experience on this class but i believe not only guard need little rebalance, other classes need it too. I will be happy for last class rebalance in this old dying game. Listen to us Funcom please.
That cannot be true as guard has so high passive resist, longer reach and bubble.
by not getting constantly cc locked it is much easier to get away from taking dmg, longer reach helps u avoid aoe splashes.
Necro has all of its feats garbage outdated too, does not make the class bad. Guard is best tank for flag, and still best tank to hunt down cloth, light / rangers. Sure its boring and lacks some interesting abilities, But straight buff for him would just make any cloth armors life more hell than it currently is.
Its rarely good idea just to straight out buff something, without trading something away. if you are suggesting things to balance around guard, suggest some nerfs too
Iāve returned after a number of years, and loved the Guardian class. The pole arm combat was unique and dynamic. I donāt even know all the specifics on how it was nerfed but I barely see guards walking around and when i do its probably a 6th alt. I even see most guards equipment as a sword and shield which is fine, but not even having a pole arm in the alt weapons.
Sword and shield and a cross bow in most casesā¦ Coming back after a number of years its disappointing to see the class brought down.
In PVP the DPS is terrible. Playing a DT or Conq in defensive stance is actually possible to deal damage. im not overly technical with numbers to prove the differences but even if I loose as a Conq or DT I know ive dealt some damage and sent them off with some de-buffs. Guardians just tickle, I find it to be noticeably less effective. Other than its health pool, nothing else it really causing that much resistance to that damage coming in. The class should be more than a Flag bot in pvp.
Regardless of the initial intention of PVP being a group activity dueling has been a thing since the beginning. Im not the best and im not terrible but and this class is substantially more difficult to duel with. I win when the other player is worse or when some one equal messed up badly, thatās it. Even talking to other guards they refer to the class ans being terribly unforgiving and a shadow if its former self. 2 players in a shrinking community is a larger impact and they told me they still love there guard but just stopped PVP all together on there guard. Grind to pvp 10 only to abandon the class for pvp and roll a DT or conq.
I donāt know how much will ever change at this point in the game but I would love to see this class come back into some light.
The suggestions above would be a great start.
Thank you.
The polearm tree is just really scuffed. It offers nothing worthwhile that could make it an alternative to sword and shield tanking. While its easy to believe it offers more agressiveness in aggro and dps, it does neither, while sacrificing lots of survival, ccs and damage group-buffs, making sword and shield option king troughout endgame.
Im surprised you say polearm playstyle is dynamic, thats the opposite of what I would call it. Making even carnage conq playstyle seem interesting
I like the animations and weapon type/range which is why I used ādynamicā. Thatās all the meant. It is simple to play.
" it offers nothing over S&S" I agree with you. I just wish it was brought up to Conq and DT levels.
I get S&S is for tanking, but if tempest is more DPS its in a very poor state compared to DPS versions of other solider classes.
Without that then you have an incredibly useful tank tree, and a entire tempest tree that doesnt DPS to well, nor does it tank wellā¦ Makes me sad lol.
Ive got a pvp 10 DT and can play like Piano Cat and get kills and hold serious aggro, with or without a tali equiped. Its kinda gross. Making even carnage conq playstyle seem interesting.
In group PvP, guardian is amazing. I donāt think youāre hitting your white hits if you think the damage is ālowā. Counterweight often hits for 5k+ damage, all the while the guardian has insane base CC resists that makes them soak up additional crowd controls.
Additionally, guardian has amazing group utility. Call to arms, ardent battle cry, and stand your ground all enable your group to dish out additional damage while immune to knock back, which is the most important CC in AoC.
Conversely, DT and Carnage conq both have major issues where they often cannot perform as well as brute conq/guardian in organized pvp. Both of those classes need more love than guardian.
The reason many people donāt play guardian is that itās incredibly one dimensional and boring if you rock a full tempest spec. You literally just run around spamming counterweight with an occasional storm strike. The class is, in my opinion, best played as a juggernaut/tempest hybrid down to call to arms. You get two additional low cooldown stuns and serious group enabling abilities, and the spec requires the player to actually weapon swap.
guards strength in pvp is what stygga said + no prep needed for CW to have itās crit chance boosted
in pve what was needed was for the cooldowns and effects of the evade / immunity stuff to be buffed, while the riposte combo and itās mechanic (gets boosted after an evade/resist) to affect its agro to be somewhat on par with shield slam
Guardās current strength relies on how OP conq, barb and bs are. If you have people that can play those classes, guard is a good addition to the group, if you donāt youāre basically just there to look pretty.
One of the biggest problems guard faces is how tanky most classes are at the moment. Anybody using pvp armour will have around 40% prot which makes storm strike hit like a wet noodle and honestly i would say specing into the 11 point storm strike tree in tempest to be a mistake. Armour on the other hand is harder to get so spamming CW is by far the best way to do dmg on guard unfortunately.
Another problem for guard is that even though 5k CW crits exist, they happen against classes you donāt really want in premades anyway. In short guardian seems bad because itās probably the most support-ish type class in game at the moment and it relies on your team 100% and pubs are filled with trash that might as well close their eyes and bash their heads on the keyboard so you donāt have any influence on the game.
Interesting, Id be curious to see this build, and give it a go.
Not all Hybrids work well I understand the the idea behind this sounds good. After going Hybrid on my Barb from the help of Gardineros, its changed the enjoyment of the class for me.
