Guardian Fighter and the Shield

burndownxmas

So pre-note to all this, this is not a nerf request or any such thing just a spitball thought towards the class. So with that out of the way, I got to thinking about the class and was wondering why the class maintains a 80 percent damage reduction with it's shield regardless of the feat paths taken. What if the class started with a 40 percent reduction much like the paladin's shield and only achieved the 80 percent reduction from going down the protector feat tree?

boromir

The Pally has encounters and dailies that make them very tanky. They can mitigate all damage to 0 and then take that damage all at once....at a lower rate. Plus, that damage is also sent out as damage for them. In the meantime, they can gather 100% of their HP as temp HP. For this reason Pallys hardly ever raise their shields. GF's live and literally die by the shield.

The GF is basically like any other class when our shield is down. That said, we stack defensive gear/enchants and have more armor class than than say...a HR. Lastly, incoming damage from behind doesn't get mitigated by our shields. Now I understand that we have defensive traits, encounters and dailies. But nothing like the Pally. The shield is everything.

To answer your suggestion a little more directly...the Protectors have more stamina, so they are already winning in this regard. Not to mention the Protector capstone.