Guardian Fighter Feedback

safroden

Hey folks, this is my first official post that I am genuinely serious about. I started playing Neverwinter shortly after Mod 6 came out; so I won't pretend that I know half of what most of you know or have experienced over the past couple years of Neverwinter-ing. My first class I decided to pick to embark my journey was Guardian Fighter. I am a big advocate of tanking in general. I have played many MMO's starting with Final Fantasy XI in my earlier days. Unfortunately, too much of my life has been sucked away by the tantalizing nature of these massive online games. Suffice to say I have a bit of experience when it comes to "role" design in MMO's specifically. I reached level 70 a while back and since have reached a little over 2.3k ilvl. Nothing incredibly impressive compared to most. But either way it was a long road and left me quite baffled at the incredible lack of attention Guardian Fighter has received in comparison to most other classes.

As a tank I am of course out performed by the new and beloved Oathbound Paladin that has been sweeping the game by storm. I even found myself rolling OP just to see what all the fuss was about (and of course for the artifact at level 60.) I won't pretend that OP is where it should be and GF is just not up to OP's standards. In fact, it's honestly one of the least balanced classes I think I've ever witnessed in MMO history aside from (surprise surprise) Paladin in vanilla World of Warcraft. As of now I only have a few classes high enough to talk about. But from the select I've gotten up to 60+ I find GF is one of the clunkiest feeling and overall most difficult to master classes that I have played thus far. To be honest, even if I decide to get this class to ~4k ilvl, which may never happen, I don't see myself doing nearly as well as my tanking counterparts playing OP of the same gear/skill level. I almost had myself fooled into thinking Cryptic's tier 1 epic dungeons were meant to be done by 2600 ilvl parties. Silly me to find that it can easily be done with little effort by a group of 1800 ilvl as long as a GF isn't tanking. I could live with the fact that the dungeons are so difficult for new 70's that more effort would need to be put in to achieve victory. What I don't like is spending months getting a GF to a reasonably decent ilvl and finding myself getting wrecked while watching an OP of 400 less ilvl press one button (Templar's Wrath) and skipping through enemies like flowers in a meadow.

Anyway, that's enough of my OP hate. I would love to see GF get an overhaul, despite my built up frustrations I did have a great time leveling up my GF and it is a fun class with an incredible amount of potential. Like so many of you, I would love to see them get the attention they deserve. Since I started up playing Neverwinter I haven't been able to find much information online regarding builds or much of anything about GF as a class. I now see why and would like to see a spark of life come back into the GF community, it's the least "happening" forum out of every class. We deserve to be noticed!!!

(Mod Note: Edited as we do not allow petitions.)

kemi1984

I'm yet to try playing a Paladin. Hear it's overall much better than a GF, but still (yeah I'ma a GF freak) I would not leave my main to an OP.
As you said, class is stupidly unbalanced and it will be nerfed eventually. It's the same as for all other classes. Just look at where are the HR and SW - it's sad.
Quick note, I'm NOT asking for OP nerf, I don't give a damn on what's it doing, I'm crying because "his OP is better than mine GF ;((" I played with a lot of OP's and partied with a GF was fun (had one 3 tank ECC party and it was a blast!).

GF has it's issues, even a lot of them. But than again, which class hasn't ? Cryptic is miles away from being able to create and maintain a stable and balanced class. The only one I can say it's probably a CW (Iluminati of Neverwinter - I like this one

Just read about infamous DR bug is being addressed. it Should be/or maybe it's already patched on preview.
IF it's spot on where the issue is, THIS will enable us tanks to TANK, and not being randomly hit for 150% our HP.

Unknown

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kemi1984

The only gripe I have with Tact is that the final feat a bit "hard to use". I mean, you have to get hit in order to generate this extra AP - not that anyone should really lack the AP gain looking at the gear we have available.

The issue with "being hit" is that it's a direct hit, not the guarded one.

That was the main reason I finally went Protector rather than Tact. If you expose yourself to the archers or any other direct hit's you can't see coming you're toasted.

So I don't see it giving us the advantage that the capstone should.

As for the "fix" thing...I would love to see Steel Defense actually giving me these seconds of immunity. Can't remember from the top of my head now, but at rank 4 it should be 6 secs? Per mine experience it's more like 3 secs at max.

dfnce

Issues with resistance, feats wrong activation and time, ignored damage/cc in pvp should be addressed.

There are few my concerns about GF - shield reaction, shield slam animation, which lasts too long after canceling. Totally clunky behavior after tab marking. Sometimes you feel you don't control GF character at all, it behaves by its own rules. Like silly animation of Lunge Strike.

Play on GF depends too much on general lag and proxy choice. US proxy is best in terms of shield reaction, but also this proxy tends to disconnect a lot. EU proxy is half-laggy but more stable. Playing without proxy from Europe is bad. On other classes i don't have these artificial checks/delays (guard) before i can actually dodge out of red. This is very big difference.

To me OP vs GF is mostly about effect of Divine Protector daily vs Knight Valor, seeing from perspective of rest of party.

safroden

Thanks for the posts fellow GF's. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. @Kemi1984, I finally got the chance to run an epic post DR/Enemy armor penetration bug patch. I have to admit I am quite impressed. The epic I chose to run was ELOL since it tends to be tamer than the rest. I died a total of 3 times. Two of which were due to my own sheer stupidity and 1 was because I was surprisingly the last one alive during the scorpion fight; tanking both scorpions succesfully, mind you. No one was much over 2k ilvl and the DC was barely over 2k. It's very possible I was simply having a good run, but I'm betting on that DR fix having helped us out a ton. For the first time I felt confident in an epic. Anyone else had a chance to experience an epic post patch?

Also @dfnce I agree completely with your concerns. When you need to quicky swap out of shield to hit Into the Fray or Iron Warrior and immediately pull your shield out again to block an attack... it just feels wrong and sluggish. I also find, which may be your concerns with marking, that it takes a while to react after pressing [Tab] and sometimes marks twice. Which also makes the GF feel less fluid. The slam animation should be shorter concidering it's how we mainly build stamina and shouldn't be out from behind our shield for too long. Last but certainly not least, Aggravating Strike is my biggest problem with GF. The animation is not only too long, but sometimes will happen twice even when the second left click occurred before the first animation started. The fact that you inch forward when you spam it (sometimes?) is completely stupid and useless. When is a mob ever just out of our reach that it makes more sense to lunge forward a few feet instead of walking or Guarding our way to it normally? I find more times than not I'll lunge forward and place myself into combat advantage for a few enemy mobs if I'm tanking a group.

kemi1984

Well I finally had a chance to play for a bit and ran MC after the patch. First of all, the dungeon wasn't laggy which was a nice surprise. Than, I'm just below of 2,8 ilv so the gear is there, It was a T1 to test the waters.

I didn't die even once, it previously happened in VT/Elol on the same gear and ilvl - so the fix seems to work.

I actually had a chance to unslot Shield Talent and swap it out for Guarded Assault.

The party was around 2 ilvl, only a TR and myself were above it so it wasn't and uber fast run. I had a lot of fun tanking big packs of mobs and the run was really fun from my perspective. Other party members were doing great and we killed the boss on the 2nd try.

What hit me is that I finished 2nd in Paingiver using KV,LS and ITF. So majority of that damage had to come from at wills, LS and Guarder Assault. Shame I didn't have ACT on...

All in all change looks solid. Much less random one shots which makes the game MORE FUN. Really I don't care about other players opinion, the game has to be fun. If someone want's a challenge, unslot some of the enchants and rock on!
More challenge? go naked or play Dark Souls using your feet .

ghoulz66

What, you don't like the idea of using knight's challenge on the boss and dying in 1 hit?

I'm just happy I no longer drop dead from a single scorpion swipe or drop dead immediately after using iron warrior/villains menace. I can actually attack with at-wills now!

deathbeez

The GF feats are out of date. It's an old class and needs the feats reworked to scale for the post mod 6 gear.
You can tell that this class was designed back when 30k HP was just fine.

All new NWO classes are released over-powered, it's the marketing of this game and won't change.
What did change is half the NWO team went bye-bye and the OP balancing got missed for an entire extra mod.

Back in the day, a new class would come out, they'd be Gods, everyone would roll one and enjoy the advantage over other players (also spend some $ on them), then the next mod, the class would be brought back to Earth, everyone would complain, but get over it in a month or two. OPs got an extra mod to be immortal gods in, but I think they're get balanced in mod 8. Maybe.

oliboyph

deathbeez said:

The GF feats are out of date. It's an old class and needs the feats reworked to scale for the post mod 6 gear.
You can tell that this class was designed back when 30k HP was just fine.

All new NWO classes are released over-powered, it's the marketing of this game and won't change.
What did change is half the NWO team went bye-bye and the OP balancing got missed for an entire extra mod.

Back in the day, a new class would come out, they'd be Gods, everyone would roll one and enjoy the advantage over other players (also spend some $ on them), then the next mod, the class would be brought back to Earth, everyone would complain, but get over it in a month or two. OPs got an extra mod to be immortal gods in, but I think they're get balanced in mod 8. Maybe.

I think OP neft is to be expected, even the OP players want the their class reworked since it's just too easy to play. I get that GF need some updates, i'm still relatively new. Comparing OP with GF, i don't think I've ever seen my OP hit critical hp ever since I made it. GF's feel more traditional in terms of how tanks should work, and is sufficiently challenging. Maybe they could buff it enough for PVP and threat generation or maybe a little extra HP here and there, otherwise I think it's pretty ok at the moment.

zman81420

I have been searching for soft and hard cap stats for our Shield Bearing Bad Mother Truckers. I am a hybrid build currently between PVE and PvP and am quiet successful in the balance. But my concerns are focusing too much at any one area such as recovery or defense. I suppose I don't want to guide myself to far down a pointless path. I have a full elven set currently with my new pants, shirt and for rings I have a recovery and piercing double slotted. I have been stacking Azure R8 in all defense slots, a R9 silvery in offense and the rest are R8 Dark for offensive slots. I run the lathander set and it seems to be good for the wallet and helps my survivability with soulforge rebirth. I have a greater terror at the moment working its way up. I use a blue ioun stone of allure with double slotted neck of regen and double slotted ring of piercing all with R8 draconics currenly. I currently have 73% RI which is laughable and plan on condensing these R8 darks into 9's to address other areas. I love this class, I hit like a truck and with 11k def and 106k HP I contend well in all aspect. I am mostly concerned with stacking defense as much as possible to buff my ITF to its peak. Just wanted some feedback if at all possible.

Thanks

kemi1984

I'm now debating is it really still worth to be a protector GF.

Looking at few my latest guild runs noone needs a tank, it's again pure DPS to the end - mind you these folks are geared to the teeth.
I'm at 3k ILvl so I do believe switching to Conq is an option now. Still wondering because last time when I did that I was a LOT weaker and couldn't take a hit from Lol's Scorp's nor stand my ground at the final lizard...so yeah this is for my doubts.

GF protector is a real freaking brick wall !!

As for PVE/PVP hybrid. It's kinda hard because both of these worlds have different goals that have to be achieved to be "good".
PVP needs far more arpen that PVE. I'm actually thinking to swap Radiants in offensive for power for Silvery's to get more recovery = more attacks = more damage.

ITF is directly linked with DR, so I would pump those defensive slotted Azures as high as possible.
And ITF is by far, the best utility/group play skill in our arsenal.
I've recently dropped KV, since it's, again, not really needed when I run with the guild.

Guild boons really help to add some stats, having close to 7k LS is a beast!

vinceent1

3K conq iron warrior still need movement to avoid to be killed, but thats the fun of it, not stand like wall and absorb attacks. But if you have strong teammates, who cares to be killed sometimes? and you help them clear the trash quicklier