Tempest Guardian Reborn: Balanced Micro-Adjustments PvE/PvP

Age of Conan Class Discussion
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No Brain Dead Raw DPS Burst Buffs! It doesn’t need this.

‘‘Guardian can recieve a few micro adjustments that could address both PvE Balance with other Tanks and also fix some things that don’t work properly in PvP’’

Introduction:

Updates or Releases of Content are one thing but Fixing something that doesn’t work properly is Maintenance and therefore perfectly viable for a Maintanance Mode State of a Game.

Usually a player base exaggerates wether its about a Nerf or a Buff and many things are left in a broken state as a result. Moreover while New Content has been introduced that makes these Buffs or Nerfs have a Higher Impact.

Alternate Advancement System:

The Guardians AAs have good utility especially for Rise of the Godslayer Dungeon Encounters.

  • Prime Initiative nerf wasn’t bad. It still fulfills its purpose and its currently Balanced.
  • Wrath is not used anymore because it’s only usefull for Survival if low geared as long as you have aggro but currect Gear compensates for that and Stall the Advance is the obvious choice if someone doesn’t use Counterweight/ Champion Spirit.

Tempest Tree Feats:

  1. Disarming Aggresion: Some would argue wether to boost it’s dmg to max 20%. It wouldn’t hurt but i would prefer other micro adjustments for other Feats in PvP and use them instead.
  • What i do know for a fact for PvE though is that -30 Hate in Frenzy is perfect but also adding +30 Hate in Defensive would give the Tempest Guard a serious and viable Aggro tool vs Conq vs DT which will be quite effective when combined with Unshielded Side Hits and Counterweight.

  1. Sweep the Field: Does it work on Lost Temple Minigame Instance to throw the enemy group off the Bridge?

  2. Revenge: Guard is a defensive combo that adds Mitigation and Critigation if using Deliberate Reprisal and is fine unfeated in PvP.

  • It could use a +1-2% Hate Adjustment per Rank making the Retaliatory Strikes Build up more hate towards a Boss that hits you in PvE helping you to stay longer in the Aggro table against DTs burst.

  • It could also give a Percentage of Vengeance Stack increase per Rank to make Bloody Vengeance become usefull again. In it’s current nerfed state where it cancels all your Vengeance stacks once used and with Polearm Damage already nerfed it would be Fair and Balanced in PvP too and be a nice Aggro Burst tool for Guardian in PvE.

  1. Intimidating Shout: Very usefull if it Generated the Threat Levels Cry of Havoc does in PvE or if it had a shorter Cooldown instead.

  • For PvP if fully feated it’s Bleeding Dot would be a nice addition if the points would be worth investing there. I would say it’s good to fix it’s PvE aspect only since for Dots i have better Micro adjustment ideas that are far more practical and yet still balanced.

  • Skewer + Riposte Bleeding dot. Not much. Just a 8 seconds Bleeding dot. Similar to Intimidating Shout or less. I haven’t calculated how much would be Balanced.

  1. Redoubt + Riposte: A great utility for PvP that may as well allow Specialization Trade-Offs if it functioned and the Chance wasn’t only 10%.

  • In order for these 2 Feats + Combo to be any usefull the Feat Redoubt should either give a 5% Chance per Rank to gain Redoubt or be a 3 rank feat 5% 15% 25%.

  • Riposte DPS would be kept as it is, dealing as much damage as your Build/ Gear/ AA allows and it’s already a Guardian Combo = Low DPS so i don’t see any problem with it. Perfectly Balanced and Fair.

  • This class relies on Combinations and properly hit unshielded sides and actually land your white hits (Childsplay with Polearm) to do dmg and a Soldiers Timing/ Precision/ Discipline/ Skill. Otherwise it wont do anything. Riposte is currently almost non-functional.

  1. Lightning Reflexes: This is almost useless. The only thing that currently makes Riposte function (35% Evade chance) prevents Redoubt to even Run effectively preventing you to use Riposte.
  • The Nerf was intentional i get it but what’s the harm if a Guard gains redoubt while Evading a Bosses damage and hits him with Riposte? I guess people complained about the fact they couldn’t kill a Guard in PvP during that time but that was before Bloody Vengeance nerf and they weren’t running End-Game PvE toys there but that’s no longer the case.
  • It wouldn’t hurt PvP today and it wouldn’t hurt PvE Physical Boss (Who crits alot) Tanking him with Tempest Build. I don’t personally preffer it but it could be helpfull with certain bosses.

Counterweight PvE:

  • Counterweight tanking can be very usefull giving you the option to play with both S&S and Polearm early on. Players who are interested in PvP may actually prefer that route and benefit greatly without having to save up 40 Expertise points for Stall the Advance and may help them progress into both PvE and PvP content faster while also learning both Builds.

  • Shield Slam/ Overreach/ Stall are quite good but i prefer the same with Goad+ Irritate (Fool proof way if you’re low on aggro against DTs) following a Guard Destroyer (Brutal Destroyer Feat) with Titanic Smash which is very powerfull and hit unshielded side with Counterweight + Reckoning + Cry of Havoc while running Champion Spirit plus Cunning Deflection - Counterstrike - Strike and Guard (Deflection/ Retributive Damage) tools that do help generate more aggro.

  • It’s actually easier to stay in the Aggro table that way, just requires to actually press more buttons and watch shields. Of course Crawling Mist Blessings can be a Game Changer too including End-Game Gear.

‘‘But for Tempest Build to become viable with that in PvE we need the above Micro-Adjustments’’

PvP Guard is quite good both in Tempest - General Spec or Hybrid Tempest - Juggernaut. It’s just a few utilities that do next to nothing who need adjustment.

Balance with other Tanks:

  • Conqueror. Feint Attack with Furious Strikes/ Power Feint and Ruthless Assault are fine. It’s Feint Attack short Cooldown that makes it brain dead to deal dmg in PvP because of all the effects including wrack combined with it.
    In PvE the player doesn’t have much choice either since Bloodbath should have a shorter Cooldown instead allowing the use of a 2nd Rank after Feint Attack then follow up with Throat Slash.
    Although most Conquerors don’t even use Guard of Dancing Steel properly or even Weapon switch because FA after FA is fool proof to deal DPS in PvP and most end up popping HoFS after HoFS.

  • It’s just brainded and playing bad should have bit more of a penalty. I think this is fixed easy by just enabling Bloodbath Ranks to be used in a row and increase Feint Attack Cooldown by a bit so people actually Switch weapons and use Breach. Using GoDS properly and Throat Slash plus your banners will make sure the Class deals decent DPS and generates propper Aggro.

  • Bubbles are fine. They are overrated anyway. It’s just 8 secs.

  • Dark Templar: VoM doesn’t need more Crit buffs to run in order to be effective. The Magic DMG when combined with Spell Penetration is more than enough. Once the player gets to 20% crit via Items/ Gear and Buffs it becomes too much and excesive.

  • The player can always try to scale his Magic Damage via accesories or hitting Dooming Pressence finisher in Frenzy which gives extra 40% Magic Damage. In PvP he should do that and even using Slam after Unhallowed Blight in Frenzy on a Stunned Target from behind will actually scale his base 600-700 Unholy Procs 3+ times.

  • Really. Just how many seconds does it take to Stun in Frenzy, hit UB, hit Slam, hit Dooming Pressence and deal how much damage? It’s not even possible to calculate with VoM. It may just one shot the other if your crit is 20+
    This makes the class even more Brain Dead so there should be a Magic Damage Penalty in Defensive stance and the extra Crit from VoM be removed.

‘‘We can see that the Tanks don’t need any Nerf or Buff, just a microadjustment on what is already present’’

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I would support anything that buffed the Guardian! I think we all know FC is done with this game other than restarting the server from time to time…with that in mind here’s my humble wish list! :slight_smile:

JUGGER:
Prowess- Increase from 1% to 3% per rank.
Enraged Spirit- Current counter is 10 seconds, increase to 20 seconds like Vengeance.
Savage Strikes- Change value to 150/300/450/600/750
Brutal Destroyer- Increase effect from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.

TEMPEST:
Intimidating Shout- Should work like COH but instead of a burst of damage, leave it as a bleed doing roughly the same amount over time.
Disarming Aggression- Increase the values to 5/10/15
Storm Strike- more dps? would be nice to add a physical debuff but does FC even code bro?
Bloody Vengeance- make it worth while since all stacks are lost once its been used. As is, I dont even have it on my hotbar!

The fact is, the Guardian class is woefully behind the Conqueror and Dark Templar in both PVP and PVE. Both of which do 3 to 4 times the DPS and in most cases are preferred in group and in raid play. The little extra mitigation the guardian provides doesn’t justify its lack of DPS compared to the other soldiers.

I enjoy the Guardian class but it is also disappointing, and lacks the “fun” factor. Basically the Guardian is all work and no play.

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Wouldn’t recommend using goad this way on fights other than specific fights where the aggroswap is sort of scripted (example ethram fal t6). You shouldnt have to spend all those cooldowns to overtake another tank with goad. Goad is a raid utility not a utility to ensure your personal aggro yadi yadi etc etc.

I do agree that the balance is quite fubar atleast from PVE perspective. And it comes from a misscalculation from Funcom. Giving powerupgrades to all the tanks but forgetting that guardians aggro mainly built on innate threat hardcoded into the combofinishers, not threat coming from hate% and damage output. Conq and DT got powerful aggro-improvements thanks to the gear while Guardians stayed on the same page for more or less 3 raid tiers.

Dont expect anything to happen for your own sanity ^^. The easiest way without figuring out how to tinker classbalance would be to increase both physical and magical invuls on the bosses in the game, and adjust boss hp so they die as fast. That would make guardians innate threat in combos, esp shieldslam have bigger impact.

Some of your suggestions are good but I think you underestimate how greatly they would need to be increased. I remember we tested how to make guardian relevant in the aggro-department on testlive like 4-5 years ago with a Follower of Asura, I think we just added 30% flat dmg increase on guardian across the whole class, and we were able to switch aggro back and forth ping pong style. The follower of asura (sunstar) said that in our testing Tali dt vs Guardian, the tali dt had 33% more threat per second across the testing we did on the Kiera NPC in AoK.

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I never liked the concept of Solo Tanking. It also gets tiresome to do it the whole time.
I don’t play DPS Melees because it feels boring in PvE except Sin or Barb in PvP. Healing is frustrating (Everyone complains or blames you) and Ranged DPS i only liked Demo for a bit but since AoC doesn’t have Ranged Class Melee capabilities and i hate to kite or flee i play only Tanks.

I don’t understand why they even tried to nerf Shield Spec.
They balanced some things in the Tempest Tree but left some Feats completely Non-Functional some in Juggernaut Tree too.
Did people got killed in PvP with Shield Spec and complained? :smiley: Which is actually a very good Spec if it did the Damage it used to. At least you could have a Guard with all the good abilities and Combos from Shield and Sword usage and still be viable there. Just required more effort.

Not that most Aimbots would use it today since it’s all about a Border Zone filled with Rangers and T6 Necros and when it’s Melee, Conq or BS. I have yet to see a Carnage in PvP the last years. But i have seen some DTs who enjoy Comber. Too few are left who are good with it. (Exiles also continues to suffer from Hacks which isn’t in Maintenance mode)

Anyway. The Game doesn’t recieve any Updates but when i see RF/ OS/ Skullgate Pass update which is ‘‘New Content’’ while bugs or things that don’t function are left like that makes me wonder… Changing a few numbers more resource costly than creating Iceslaught? I don’t understand.

Maintenance is supposedly like a Car Service = The Brakes are rusty and Broken (They creak) when are they going to be replaced? After a Crash? Game doesn’t need new content.
Only small adjustments. Even a modder could do it if Funcom bothered to Hire a small team.

Not worth the effort would someone say from an economical perspective but was Iceslaught worth it? There are alot of Premium members who just left the Game in the last 2 years.

Unless that’s the goal in the first place. But if that’s the case, why bother releasing Iceslaught?
If AoC is a Cow that just needs to be milked as much as possible before shutdown at least fix what doesn’t function so we can enjoy it before the Servers close.

It will cost alot less than Iceslaught!

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Sorry to tell you this but new content is vital for any game that relies on sub or microtransactions to continue to be succesful. While bugfixes are very important especially for game breaking ones, most games are ok with having a decently size backlog of bugs that might never be fixed and work on new features will never be delayed for bugs that the product manager will be ok with having.

Also saying that this game doesn’t need new content is funny to say the least. T6 was launched in late 2015, early 2016 i think. Since then funcom has launched the crawling chaos (a pretty short classic style dungeon), raid finder (completely rehashed old raids that have the exact same mechanics except either dumbed down to the point you can ignore them or a bunch of mechanics removed) and the 2 onslaughts (i would say they’re dungeons sort of).

Now let’s compare this with what another MMO that most people have at least heard of, WoW. They launched their legion expansion on 30th august 2016. So at this point t6 was a bit late and chaos was almost launched. Since then WoW has had 3 expansions including legion. This adds to a total of over 30 dungeons, the mythic+ system for dungeons and 10 big raids (each with 10+ bosses) and 1 small one (2 bosses). And this is just comparing dungeons and raids.

You can’t read this and tell me that this game doesn’t need new content.
Even in your post you make fun of the lack of content in this game by calling RF/ OS/ Skullgate “New Content”. RF is 6 years old at this point, kutch is over 1 year old and skullgate is 8 months old. There is no sub based game that would consider any of this new content. And all this is with WoW and AoC having comparable sub prices.

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I agree but they said they wont be releasing anything.
It’s for funcom to make us understand their intentions though. Is this Game in Maintenance mode or not?
Nothing seems clear and as a result we don’t know what to expect. Plus you can’t leave Gamebreaking bugs or Non-Functional Services especially Payment Issues like that.
Community could use an Announcement as to what are their intentions. They don’t have to give us Deadlines of X update or anything just Announce we have the X & Y that are a Work in Progress or nothing of that neither fixes are planned.

They wont do because it’s about milking a Cow but than again dont tease us with Skullgate. Unless Skullgate is only a fix (Adding the missing Kuth Gems) and nothing else.

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simple as u said, they’ll shut up cos they want the submoney from the people with hope that this game will go anywhere from here.

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