By reading this thread, I've concluded in people blaming the devs and character because they're just bad. Enough said.
While many, or perhaps most players could be considered "bad", there are some issues with threat and GF tanking (this is a beta after all). The biggest problem is that GF threat skills are goofy and sub-par. Can they be worked around? Yeah, sure. Good players will always find work arounds. But if you have to work around the mechanics of any class in any game, that's an indication the mechanics have problems.
I've no issues tanking most groups of mobs at lv 20. Then again, I don't block-tank, I DPS-tank. IF any strong adds get unaggroed from me, I get an almost permanent double threat bonus on them because of marks not going away until they poke me. I INTENTIONALLY dash to ranged mobs when I have aggro from the strong mobs, after using enforced threat; They're gonna have to run after me, and I get to build threat (or outright kill) the ranged mobs. I only block strong or knockdown attacks (or occasionally to quickly build up AP meter: knockaway attacks just means I lunge after them. I always lunge in first into enemies (also tip: you can lunge from mid-air). Strong ranged mobs are always a priority: melee mobs have to run after me when I use enforced threat. Enforced threat when a CW gathers everything means double threat until they recover, which more or less means they're stuck on you so long as you keep up with attacks.
1) Learn when to use and not to use enforced threat.
2) Learn which targets are priority, which are not.
3) Learn how different targets move, and hence when to use lunge.
4) Learn which attacks should be facetanked, blocked, sidestepped, or interrupted.
5) Mark has a REALLY long range. Learn when to use them to pull, instead of lunging in.
6) Mark often, mark constantly, mark when the enemy uses a long telegraphed attack which you can easily sidestep and continue bursting down, mark when an enemy escapes from you so you can quickly regain attention.
7) Reserve griffon's wrath for use when you can stick a mark on your target, or an interrupt is required.
8) Always have a cleric pet, even if you have a cleric in party. More healers = more facetanking = more DPS potential. (also helps lessen the heal load of your healer)
The biggest problem is that GF threat skills are goofy and sub-par.
Please elaborate, here is the toolbox in powers:
- Enforced threat, an aoe taunt that damages and marks all targets
- Mark, doubles the threat on targets
- Enhanced Mark, even more threat (+100% on top of the double of mark) and it builds up as a dot
- Knights Valor, even more threat
- Threatening rush, an at-will charge that Aoe-marks targets...wow ! bye tab key!wait...at will? no cooldown...even better!
- Supremacy of steel, a wonderful daily, pop enforced threat, pop supremacy of steel and the mobs will never stop hugging you! the more the hit you, the more you hit back. and guess what, you can block all the while and the damage returned is the same as if you were not blocking. Scales awesomely well, the harder they hit the harder they stick.
Oh and there are the feats too:
- Potent challenge...more threat.
- Power attack...more damage...more threat
- Strength...more damage...more threat
- overwhelming impact, supremacy of steel reduces damage resistance so it hits even harder and they stick even more.
- Brawling warrior, more and more and more threat.
- Fight on, keep spamming those taunts that do more damage and more threat.
At a certain skill level, threat stops being an issue and most GFs I know concentrate on doing more dps and surviving more. It's just a learning curve, when you get there its a non issue. Takes time to learn that is all, to put the skills in the right shortcuts and more importantly, to learn how to fast switch passives/dailies/skills for the encounter ahead. If you exit a dungeon with the same skills you came in with, well, you just need to practice more. Hey, that's what's leveling is about!
The problem with mark (and all marking skills, and enforced threat) is that it disappears once you're hit. Which basically means you either have to block (which reduces your AoE potential, hence AoE threat gain), or stop getting hit (which is hard for ranged mobs, or small enemies which uses fast attacks, or when there's just so many enemies you can't avoid everything), or spam marks all the time. A feat which lets your marks last more hits would be nice (or build that into enhanced marks: having the mark last longer might be preferable to having increased threat gain, or a threat over time gain which we can't even measure..).
Random question: I'd assume so, but does all GF skills have an increased threat multiplier? (eg. cleave against an unmarked target, assuming no threat feats)?
The problem with mark (and all marking skills, and enforced threat) is that it disappears once you're hit. Which basically means you either have to block (which reduces your AoE potential, hence AoE threat gain), or stop getting hit (which is hard for ranged mobs, or small enemies which uses fast attacks, or when there's just so many enemies you can't avoid everything), or spam marks all the time. A feat which lets your marks last more hits would be nice (or build that into enhanced marks: having the mark last longer might be preferable to having increased threat gain, or a threat over time gain which we can't even measure..).
Random question: I'd assume so, but does all GF skills have an increased threat multiplier? (eg. cleave against an unmarked target, assuming no threat feats)?
I believe cleave doesn't have any extra threat, it is just like normal attack. If any skills that have extra threat, they would have say that in the tooltip.
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oreoz2573Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I take issue with companions being able to take threat and keep it. They just hold up their guard infinitely and the boss just wails on them.
Normally I'd be fine with this but an AI companion has no sense of positioning and crowd control and wherever the boss boots him, that's where he fights and thats where the boss goes and if that's into a crowd of adds......ugh...
"If you're going through Hell, keep going." -Winston Churchill
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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fullmetalpopeBanned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
- Enforced threat, an aoe taunt that damages and marks all targets
- Mark, doubles the threat on targets
- Enhanced Mark, even more threat (+100% on top of the double of mark) and it builds up as a dot
- Knights Valor, even more threat
- Threatening rush, an at-will charge that Aoe-marks targets...wow ! bye tab key!wait...at will? no cooldown...even better!
- Supremacy of steel, a wonderful daily, pop enforced threat, pop supremacy of steel and the mobs will never stop hugging you! the more the hit you, the more you hit back. and guess what, you can block all the while and the damage returned is the same as if you were not blocking. Scales awesomely well, the harder they hit the harder they stick.
Oh and there are the feats too:
- Potent challenge...more threat.
- Power attack...more damage...more threat
- Strength...more damage...more threat
- overwhelming impact, supremacy of steel reduces damage resistance so it hits even harder and they stick even more.
- Brawling warrior, more and more and more threat.
- Fight on, keep spamming those taunts that do more damage and more threat.
At a certain skill level, threat stops being an issue and most GFs I know concentrate on doing more dps and surviving more. It's just a learning curve, when you get there its a non issue. Takes time to learn that is all, to put the skills in the right shortcuts and more importantly, to learn how to fast switch passives/dailies/skills for the encounter ahead. If you exit a dungeon with the same skills you came in with, well, you just need to practice more. Hey, that's what's leveling is about!
Good luck!
Nice troll post!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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ironmanfuryMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 10Arc User
edited May 2013
One of the best things I have read so far in the forums (and not sure if it's good or not) is this....
GF - Tanks Boss
TR - Dmg on boss
CW - controls adds
GWF - kills adds
Cleric obviously keeps everyone alive.
Ehm, yea well 2 Give some advise on that, not all fights are the same, some bosses are so slow that a Tr and Gwf can easy take him down, and The Tank should focus more on kiting/tanking the adds around the Clerics save zone. ofc, Killing adds should be the Prime target for everyone before it gets out of hand 2 much. but thats just mine opinion
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slashylereuxMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 6Arc User
The problem with mark (and all marking skills, and enforced threat) is that it disappears once you're hit. Which basically means you either have to block (which reduces your AoE potential, hence AoE threat gain) ...*snip*...
When you block and use 'Aggravating Strike', the active-blocking-stab-over-the-shield at-will, it hits everything in a 5' cone. If you position yourself properly you can hit multiple mobs.
GF I'm 60 and I've done several dungeons. From my experience in the game, the dungeons are aimed more than ever to play together. Me with my character I can catch the boss aggro all the time you want. And also this oriented cleric hold large amount of damage, is as easy as the whole group fence kill the adds while the GF is left alone with the boss to avoid affecting their area attacks the group. While the rest of the group has to protect the clergy and the fast desacerse adds focus to do so after the boss. And repeat these actions whenever the adds attack the cleric. The few times I've found a group that made me case been an easy task to kill the boss. Keep the boss with the brand and not separated from you ever;).
Sorry for the translation of google. my English is very bad.
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perfectindigoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I don't agree the guardian fighter should tank the boss while the rest of the party kills things. A guardian fighter is strongest when they act with the group and weakest when they act solo. Tanking the boss is a waste because the GF isn't doing any significant damage and any buffs/debuffs are going to waste because no one is attacking the GF's target.
As a tank, GF has two roles:
Keep adds off other people.
Debuff enemies.
If you want someone to solo a boss, pick a rogue. I was in a party that wiped at the end of wolf's den ... except for the rogue. It took a long time, but the rogue soloed the boss from half health. He was able to kill adds as they showed up, and use his agility and stealth to barely take any damage. The rogue "tanked" that boss much better than a gf ever could. However, one reason it took a long time because there was no GF to hold threat while the rogue was attacking, which meant the rogue had to spend a lot of time evading.
The role of the GF is to speed things up by helping other people do their jobs faster. So, get threat on loose adds that are slowing down the cleric. Get threat on the boss (when there are no adds). Debuff enemies so that dps can kill them faster. Don't focus on any one specific enemy at the expense of keeping threat on others. Always move to engage and debuff the field of enemies. Skills like Enforced Threat, Frontline Surge, Threatening Rush, and Villain's Menace are great for getting lots of things angry and distracted while your allies kill them.
I've fought the dragons in both the skirmish and the dungeon before, the skirmish was the harder one. Regarding the skirmish - The strange thing was that even with a sub-tank (Great Weapon Fighter), Cleric, Control Wizard AND Rogue in their team, I've come up with situations where I'm tanking BOTH sub-boss healers (Swamp Mystics) and the dragon, while the other 4, even with an AoE GWF in the group, has trouble dealing with the trash mobs.
Honestly, they should be concentrating fire on one of the healer subbosses while I tank the other + the dragon + whatever random trash is within my AoE taunt/shield multi-mark's vicinity... but they can't seem to do so. I give up on the initial tactic, try to draw the trash off them... and then end up eating pots while basically tanking an entire Skirmish's mobs alone. The dragon also AoEing even its own trash mobs helps in me not getting wiped. If not for the Lvl 15 cleric companion that would be completely unsurvivable.... but they still don't kill the healers in spite of repeated calls to do so in chat in between keeping my self not dead running, shielding and knocking over the mobs while running from both the dragons' and healers' red circles/lines.
Then I gave up on the rest of my party entirely, and started to focus on concentrating damage on one healer alone (and avoiding the dragon's area attacks), while limiting the AoEs so the trash don't keep coming after me - 3 minutes later, they gave up when my shield broke, and went after the 4 again. It's **** slow since our DPS is crud on one enemy, but the subboss eventually died, the second subboss was somewhat easier to kill, and now with them down the other 4 players finally seem to make some progress against the trash flood - enough to help kill the dragon. I was the top healer in the party (thanks to my cleric companion), which is really BS considering a player Cleric was there... the most enemies killed, the most damage taken (to the order of 3x the 2nd place due to those minutes where I essentially tanked the whole instance), but the lowest damage dealt.
I'm already starting to wonder if I should change my specs to an aggressive mode and focus on upping my damage to a halfway decent level so that I can dictate the flow of combat alone instead... because some players really can't be relied on for anything to even do their own class' job. Some are too cheapskate to even use health potions. And some Control Wizards love that scattering move that basically ensures enough trash are scattered enough to converge onto the healer and kill him if you don't use the AoE threat move fast enough.
Hopefully players are a bit less useless at level 60, but perhaps the Foundry exploit, doing normal quests in 5-man groups and other such nonsense may allow people to get to the cap even without learning how to play their own class properly.
===
Also, I've noticed as well that having guard abilities seems to affect the threat you draw to a pretty large extent. While this is a bit different in solo situations, against large groups of enemies it's usually better to let all the trash hit you unguarded, then quickly guard and stab the lot to 'taunt' them, and drop the shield again and take damage, the damage is really quite minimal. Remember that 10 trash attacks is equal to a single unguarded sub boss attack, but attacks regardless of how much damage they do always seem to consume the same amount of guard. The only things you should actually be using the shield to guard against are the sub-boss/boss attacks. Those that leave red marks on the ground, avoid completely if you can - a bit harder for me since my actions seem to be delayed by 1 second before the server reacts to them, but still doable. The only exception are boss-level red attacks that hit all members including the other enemy mobs - in those situations, you should get next to the boss, guard, and take zero damage from them while letting the boss damage all of them, since mobs don't seem to know how to avoid friendly fire.
Never let your guard break unless you purposely want to lose threat for some reason. I'm assuming Cryptic coded this into AI behaviour so that the GF won't just up and die if his shield breaks under the barrage of multiple attacks. But regardless of why it happens exploiting the mechanic helps prevent your party from wiping.
There have also been parties so terribad that they can't even stay alive against a dungeon's first boss while I'm tanking it and a couple of trash... when it happens I just quit. Nothing can save a party like that against the final boss of the same dungeon.
with my guardian till lvl 40 i was in the top 2 in most dmg and always number 1 in dmg taken...at low lvls guardian is basicly a god...its getting harder at higher lvls.
But tanking pre lvl 30:ish is a non issue. There's no dungeons or bosses that actually requires you to tank (even if you could).
But once you hit 35 - 40+ trying to tank becomes an impossibility.
The ONLY times i can reliably hold aggro on and tank a boss (forget any of the adds) is if i'm the only one attacking it.
I'm basically forced to rely on the rest of the team to keep the healer alive because the second i stop taunting all that threat i built is gone and the boss runs rampant. Which makes it extra frustrating when trying to avoid that red ring of doom as i have to start building threat all over again.
Threatening rush is ok:ish, but the range of it is so poor i spend more time running after bosses trying to get in range then actually using the bloody skill...
After dinging 40 on my GF its becomming so frustrating i've lost the will to play it. And the only reason i haven't deleted him is because i have a purp and a blue companion on it that i don't want to lose.
Just did the "storm the keep" skirmish, and the last boss is a pure pain, i had no control over the fight, and with 3xTR and a CW it was impossible to tank it, during that fight i was called all sorts of things and taunt was a big part aswell, even with taunt on constant cd i was unable to tank anything.
I do hope that tanking gets a overhaul or threat get's reviewed in a later patch.
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triddlingMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 4Arc User
edited May 2013
Having tanked all of the content in the game I have a few things to say. Firstly to those people complaining about the early game, you will feel more powerful later on assuming you don't actually suck at it (lots of people do seem to suck at GF). I'm specced conqueror and I haven't played with the other specs. I hear from many people that the other specs all suck, but as I said a lot of the players suck so its hard to know what's true; what I do know is that conqueror does not suck.
Secondly with regards to whether we're to tank the boss, the adds, or the boss and the adds. All of these things are true in different situations. It depends on the fight and the makeup of your group. If you have a trickster rogue, for the most part you should let him handle the boss and work on adds. Some fights you can do both, up to you to judge. Usually there's no reason to 'tank' the boss, the bosses attacks should not be landing on players. Other times, particularly when you have no TR in your group you will do what the TR would otherwise be doing and DPS the boss. 'DPS the boss? Surely you mean tank him' you might ask....
At leat if you have specced conq you are basically a DPS/control class, when on the mobs your job is to round them up and kill them, 'threat' is your way of rounding them up, not your way of making sure they hit you. You want to be evading damage, not blocking it with your shield (blocking being a last resort/method to genereate AP.) You can put out good damage, expect to top damage meters at least semi-regularly, depending on your gear etc. Be sure to have threatening rush and enhanced mark slotted when you're mob DPS! You will, in my experience, struggle to hold agro without it, and if you're not holding agro someone squishier probably has it and while you're not a 'tank' in the sense that you are in some games, you still prefer it be your face than the clerics.
When on the boss you still do good damage, good enough to fill the TR's boots and be the 'boss killer', but there's a little room left in those metaphorical boots, don't expect to top meters on the boss. While you're not ideal for this job, you're about as good as a GWF at it, and CW is only good at this on certain fights, so you might find yourself doing it.
As to whether we're the 'worst class' as many people seem to claim I'm not entirely sure that I disagree, but I certainly am not concerned by it. I feel powerful, I do lots of damage and provide good utility to the group, replace the word guardian with control and things might make more sense. It doesn't need to be the same as tanking in other games for it to be good, useful or fun and it is definitely all of those things.
Neverwinter is my first fantasy-MMOG (I refuse to call this a "roleplaying game"), so maybe I'm just inexperienced on this. But...
I've got a guardian at level 40. And my impression so far is that the guardian has some serious gameplay system problems. I honestly don't have much trouble drawing aggro from individual enemies or small groups. Improved Mark, Enforced Threat, and Threatening Rush will get me all the attention I want. The issue then becomes: What do I do with it.
The guardian's shield mechanic seems like such an amazing thing until you realize that bosses, even mid-level guys like Battle Wights, can knock half your guard meter off with one hit. You're FAR better off avoiding their large hits, but that's where the gameplay mechanics get in your way. Your shield is "sluggish". It takes a second to come up, and it takes a second to go away, and while it's up you move like molasses which makes it harder to get out of the attack's reach. Several enemies, especially as I go up in levels, can complete their attack faster than I can make a decision to block or not and then either bring the shield up or let it go and move out of the way. And in high level dungeons, when there's half a dozen mid level guys all after you at once? Forget it. If you put your shield up it will be battered aside instantly. Also nothing seems to improve the amount of damage your shield can absorb, which is strange and probably isn't helping its general feeling of semi-futility.
Anyway. Yeah. I can get things attention, but don't feel like I survive really nasty enemies any better than other classes because my shield is so awkward and limited to use and I lack any way to dodge. The things that REALLY help me stay alive are the ones that knock enemies prone so they stop hitting me, or stun them, provided you're fighting just one thing that's worth interrupting (and can be interrupted). The shield seems to be basically just for bulldozing through minor monsters that can't break it while you stab everything in front of you or for occasionally avoiding stuns/disables/spell AOEs if you're not near an edge.
Would it be better for a GF to rush attack someone ahead of the group as they all come to the fight behind, or let cloakers go up unannounced to surprise attack them?
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unstoppixelMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Neverwinter is my first fantasy-MMOG (I refuse to call this a "roleplaying game"), so maybe I'm just inexperienced on this. But...
I've got a guardian at level 40. And my impression so far is that the guardian has some serious gameplay system problems. I honestly don't have much trouble drawing aggro from individual enemies or small groups. Improved Mark, Enforced Threat, and Threatening Rush will get me all the attention I want. The issue then becomes: What do I do with it.
The guardian's shield mechanic seems like such an amazing thing until you realize that bosses, even mid-level guys like Battle Wights, can knock half your guard meter off with one hit. You're FAR better off avoiding their large hits, but that's where the gameplay mechanics get in your way. Your shield is "sluggish". It takes a second to come up, and it takes a second to go away, and while it's up you move like molasses which makes it harder to get out of the attack's reach. Several enemies, especially as I go up in levels, can complete their attack faster than I can make a decision to block or not and then either bring the shield up or let it go and move out of the way. And in high level dungeons, when there's half a dozen mid level guys all after you at once? Forget it. If you put your shield up it will be battered aside instantly. Also nothing seems to improve the amount of damage your shield can absorb, which is strange and probably isn't helping its general feeling of semi-futility.
Anyway. Yeah. I can get things attention, but don't feel like I survive really nasty enemies any better than other classes because my shield is so awkward and limited to use and I lack any way to dodge. The things that REALLY help me stay alive are the ones that knock enemies prone so they stop hitting me, or stun them, provided you're fighting just one thing that's worth interrupting (and can be interrupted). The shield seems to be basically just for bulldozing through minor monsters that can't break it while you stab everything in front of you or for occasionally avoiding stuns/disables/spell AOEs if you're not near an edge.
meh
I'm only level 16 on my GF but I totally agree with this. When running The Cloak Tower, I feel like it's just chaos all the way through. So then I feel like I'm playing a worthless class. If I can't hold aggro, then I'm just a weak DPS class... so why not just play my Rogue or something instead. The only thing that holds me to my GF is the hopes that they will fix it, as I prefer playing Tank classes in these games.
this is not WoW, that's not a tanker/healer system...
you know why? BECAUSE IT'S D&D!!!
did you ever playerd D&D?
the neverwinter system is working perfectly, no problem at dungeons...
Who said it was WoW? If there are issues with a certain class, where as the class feels pointless, that's a problem... D&D or any other game. Judging from the length of this thread, I'd think you might have noticed many people seem to agree.
My real and almost only concern (despite the threat issue) is the guard gauge. Honestly, being unable to guard much longer than 10s really pisses me off. So ok, once 60 you got the PvP geear which adds up +20% guard meter, and few others skill (shield talent +5% here, some +5% there.. which makes no big difference) , but what before then ? nada. you try to spam bash your shield to keep up with the damage blocked and fill up your gauge but its a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> poor solution that leads to the same result. Even the use of Iron warrior tht supposedly recovers guard meter does jack. i mean it's slow and ineffective, an improvement would be to add a speed bonus per rank to guard recovery for example. Armor of Bahamut.. i feel like i've wasted 5 precious points : once broken the guard stays red for-effin-ever. gimme a break. Or educate me on this.
what defines 100% of guard precisely ? whats the equation ? AC * lvl / dmg blablabla? tell me i'm curious. because as it is now our shield is worthless imho.
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layol692k7Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
yeah at least they try to balance classes
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layol692k7Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I didn't really feel tanky until I tanked the Blackdagger Brothers. (One in the Skirmish, the other in the Dungeon).
I'm at level 26 now, working on hitting 30 after the maintenance is over.
from what I can tell, the philosophy on Tanking in this game is different from most other MMOs. Please note that I am not a T2 farming expert god or anything, I'm just a mid-level player atm. I am speaking from my limited experience playing the Guardian Fighter thus far.
in most MMOs, the Tank is responsible for holding aggro on everything in the encounter. that is their primary focus, get everything in the room beating on them, so that nobody else has to worry about getting hit, or avoiding damage themselves. if everyone is hitting the tank, all you have to worry about is your dps rotation or spamming your heals on the tank to keep him standing.
in Neverwinter, the philosophy seems to be slightly different. Here, the primary objective of the Defender is to engage the biggest, baddest *** in the room, and keep him focused on you while the rest of the party clears the smaller enemies, and then moves on to help you with the Big Guy. You assist with what AOE damage and threat skills that you can, but maintaining aggro on everything else is secondary to keeping the Big Guy off of the rest of your party. IF you can get and maintain agro on the rest of the room, then that is great, but not if it allows the Big Guy to roam free. It falls to the other party members to be attentive enough to be mobile and avoid damage. in short, the Strikers, Controllers, and Leaders, need to pay a little more attention. The Controllers can make things more manageable for the Strikers with their Crowd Control skills and damage. The Leaders keep everyone buffed and healed.
overall, this philosophy is sound and works, provided everything is operating the way it is supposed to. the problem here, is that everything is NOT operating the way it is supposed to. Cleric Aggro and Guardian Threat is wonky, to put it nicely.
It is so simple really. Keep the cleric alive, keep the dps alive, otherwise dps your heart out. Prioritize saving the cleric first. There is NO point, really NO point standing in front of a boss for the duration of a fight.
All the GF that fail at doing their job are the kind that want to sit tight in a corner with all the mobs and the boss on them and dont move. If that what you were intending to do, well, you rolled the wrong class my friend.
And as many have said, tanking (how I hate using this word for what the GF role is, because it is NOT tanking) in this game is about mobility, interception, stunning/knocking back at the right moment, saving taunts for when the boss summons a gazzillion adds that have nothing in mind than to feast on your white clothed cleric and have the wizards as desert.
Forget about saving the rogues and the GWF, they can handle themselves well and get out of trouble, focus on keeping the adds/boss away from the cleric so that he can do his job and nothing can stop your party!
Edit: I just wanted to add, that there is no ammount of heals or gear that can save you from getting insta gibbed if you have 20+ adds on you. You are simply not supposed to tank in this game, you are supposed to be a guardian!
I can gree that tanking isn't the only thing for a GF but sayign it's not at all is wrong. No i'm not anywhere near max lv but if we are not meant to tank why do we have block on our shift? Only reason is to block things that hit us and if we are not suppose to tank then that's pointless and so is all the extra threat passives and abilities.
I bet you meant it differently but you did say we shouldn't tank but be guardians while I'd say we shoudl be both. Adapt to the situation and keep as much on you as possible sicne you can take the most damage and help your team mates.
Comments
While many, or perhaps most players could be considered "bad", there are some issues with threat and GF tanking (this is a beta after all). The biggest problem is that GF threat skills are goofy and sub-par. Can they be worked around? Yeah, sure. Good players will always find work arounds. But if you have to work around the mechanics of any class in any game, that's an indication the mechanics have problems.
Says the chump.
1) Learn when to use and not to use enforced threat.
2) Learn which targets are priority, which are not.
3) Learn how different targets move, and hence when to use lunge.
4) Learn which attacks should be facetanked, blocked, sidestepped, or interrupted.
5) Mark has a REALLY long range. Learn when to use them to pull, instead of lunging in.
6) Mark often, mark constantly, mark when the enemy uses a long telegraphed attack which you can easily sidestep and continue bursting down, mark when an enemy escapes from you so you can quickly regain attention.
7) Reserve griffon's wrath for use when you can stick a mark on your target, or an interrupt is required.
8) Always have a cleric pet, even if you have a cleric in party. More healers = more facetanking = more DPS potential. (also helps lessen the heal load of your healer)
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
Please elaborate, here is the toolbox in powers:
- Enforced threat, an aoe taunt that damages and marks all targets
- Mark, doubles the threat on targets
- Enhanced Mark, even more threat (+100% on top of the double of mark) and it builds up as a dot
- Knights Valor, even more threat
- Threatening rush, an at-will charge that Aoe-marks targets...wow ! bye tab key!wait...at will? no cooldown...even better!
- Supremacy of steel, a wonderful daily, pop enforced threat, pop supremacy of steel and the mobs will never stop hugging you! the more the hit you, the more you hit back. and guess what, you can block all the while and the damage returned is the same as if you were not blocking. Scales awesomely well, the harder they hit the harder they stick.
Oh and there are the feats too:
- Potent challenge...more threat.
- Power attack...more damage...more threat
- Strength...more damage...more threat
- overwhelming impact, supremacy of steel reduces damage resistance so it hits even harder and they stick even more.
- Brawling warrior, more and more and more threat.
- Fight on, keep spamming those taunts that do more damage and more threat.
At a certain skill level, threat stops being an issue and most GFs I know concentrate on doing more dps and surviving more. It's just a learning curve, when you get there its a non issue. Takes time to learn that is all, to put the skills in the right shortcuts and more importantly, to learn how to fast switch passives/dailies/skills for the encounter ahead. If you exit a dungeon with the same skills you came in with, well, you just need to practice more. Hey, that's what's leveling is about!
Good luck!
Random question: I'd assume so, but does all GF skills have an increased threat multiplier? (eg. cleave against an unmarked target, assuming no threat feats)?
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
Normally I'd be fine with this but an AI companion has no sense of positioning and crowd control and wherever the boss boots him, that's where he fights and thats where the boss goes and if that's into a crowd of adds......ugh...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Nice troll post!
GF - Tanks Boss
TR - Dmg on boss
CW - controls adds
GWF - kills adds
Cleric obviously keeps everyone alive.
Ehm, yea well 2 Give some advise on that, not all fights are the same, some bosses are so slow that a Tr and Gwf can easy take him down, and The Tank should focus more on kiting/tanking the adds around the Clerics save zone. ofc, Killing adds should be the Prime target for everyone before it gets out of hand 2 much. but thats just mine opinion
When you block and use 'Aggravating Strike', the active-blocking-stab-over-the-shield at-will, it hits everything in a 5' cone. If you position yourself properly you can hit multiple mobs.
Sorry for the translation of google. my English is very bad.
As a tank, GF has two roles:
Keep adds off other people.
Debuff enemies.
If you want someone to solo a boss, pick a rogue. I was in a party that wiped at the end of wolf's den ... except for the rogue. It took a long time, but the rogue soloed the boss from half health. He was able to kill adds as they showed up, and use his agility and stealth to barely take any damage. The rogue "tanked" that boss much better than a gf ever could. However, one reason it took a long time because there was no GF to hold threat while the rogue was attacking, which meant the rogue had to spend a lot of time evading.
The role of the GF is to speed things up by helping other people do their jobs faster. So, get threat on loose adds that are slowing down the cleric. Get threat on the boss (when there are no adds). Debuff enemies so that dps can kill them faster. Don't focus on any one specific enemy at the expense of keeping threat on others. Always move to engage and debuff the field of enemies. Skills like Enforced Threat, Frontline Surge, Threatening Rush, and Villain's Menace are great for getting lots of things angry and distracted while your allies kill them.
I've fought the dragons in both the skirmish and the dungeon before, the skirmish was the harder one. Regarding the skirmish - The strange thing was that even with a sub-tank (Great Weapon Fighter), Cleric, Control Wizard AND Rogue in their team, I've come up with situations where I'm tanking BOTH sub-boss healers (Swamp Mystics) and the dragon, while the other 4, even with an AoE GWF in the group, has trouble dealing with the trash mobs.
Honestly, they should be concentrating fire on one of the healer subbosses while I tank the other + the dragon + whatever random trash is within my AoE taunt/shield multi-mark's vicinity... but they can't seem to do so. I give up on the initial tactic, try to draw the trash off them... and then end up eating pots while basically tanking an entire Skirmish's mobs alone. The dragon also AoEing even its own trash mobs helps in me not getting wiped. If not for the Lvl 15 cleric companion that would be completely unsurvivable.... but they still don't kill the healers in spite of repeated calls to do so in chat in between keeping my self not dead running, shielding and knocking over the mobs while running from both the dragons' and healers' red circles/lines.
Then I gave up on the rest of my party entirely, and started to focus on concentrating damage on one healer alone (and avoiding the dragon's area attacks), while limiting the AoEs so the trash don't keep coming after me - 3 minutes later, they gave up when my shield broke, and went after the 4 again. It's **** slow since our DPS is crud on one enemy, but the subboss eventually died, the second subboss was somewhat easier to kill, and now with them down the other 4 players finally seem to make some progress against the trash flood - enough to help kill the dragon. I was the top healer in the party (thanks to my cleric companion), which is really BS considering a player Cleric was there... the most enemies killed, the most damage taken (to the order of 3x the 2nd place due to those minutes where I essentially tanked the whole instance), but the lowest damage dealt.
I'm already starting to wonder if I should change my specs to an aggressive mode and focus on upping my damage to a halfway decent level so that I can dictate the flow of combat alone instead... because some players really can't be relied on for anything to even do their own class' job. Some are too cheapskate to even use health potions. And some Control Wizards love that scattering move that basically ensures enough trash are scattered enough to converge onto the healer and kill him if you don't use the AoE threat move fast enough.
Hopefully players are a bit less useless at level 60, but perhaps the Foundry exploit, doing normal quests in 5-man groups and other such nonsense may allow people to get to the cap even without learning how to play their own class properly.
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Also, I've noticed as well that having guard abilities seems to affect the threat you draw to a pretty large extent. While this is a bit different in solo situations, against large groups of enemies it's usually better to let all the trash hit you unguarded, then quickly guard and stab the lot to 'taunt' them, and drop the shield again and take damage, the damage is really quite minimal. Remember that 10 trash attacks is equal to a single unguarded sub boss attack, but attacks regardless of how much damage they do always seem to consume the same amount of guard. The only things you should actually be using the shield to guard against are the sub-boss/boss attacks. Those that leave red marks on the ground, avoid completely if you can - a bit harder for me since my actions seem to be delayed by 1 second before the server reacts to them, but still doable. The only exception are boss-level red attacks that hit all members including the other enemy mobs - in those situations, you should get next to the boss, guard, and take zero damage from them while letting the boss damage all of them, since mobs don't seem to know how to avoid friendly fire.
Never let your guard break unless you purposely want to lose threat for some reason. I'm assuming Cryptic coded this into AI behaviour so that the GF won't just up and die if his shield breaks under the barrage of multiple attacks. But regardless of why it happens exploiting the mechanic helps prevent your party from wiping.
There have also been parties so terribad that they can't even stay alive against a dungeon's first boss while I'm tanking it and a couple of trash... when it happens I just quit. Nothing can save a party like that against the final boss of the same dungeon.
But once you hit 35 - 40+ trying to tank becomes an impossibility.
The ONLY times i can reliably hold aggro on and tank a boss (forget any of the adds) is if i'm the only one attacking it.
I'm basically forced to rely on the rest of the team to keep the healer alive because the second i stop taunting all that threat i built is gone and the boss runs rampant. Which makes it extra frustrating when trying to avoid that red ring of doom as i have to start building threat all over again.
Threatening rush is ok:ish, but the range of it is so poor i spend more time running after bosses trying to get in range then actually using the bloody skill...
After dinging 40 on my GF its becomming so frustrating i've lost the will to play it. And the only reason i haven't deleted him is because i have a purp and a blue companion on it that i don't want to lose.
I do hope that tanking gets a overhaul or threat get's reviewed in a later patch.
Secondly with regards to whether we're to tank the boss, the adds, or the boss and the adds. All of these things are true in different situations. It depends on the fight and the makeup of your group. If you have a trickster rogue, for the most part you should let him handle the boss and work on adds. Some fights you can do both, up to you to judge. Usually there's no reason to 'tank' the boss, the bosses attacks should not be landing on players. Other times, particularly when you have no TR in your group you will do what the TR would otherwise be doing and DPS the boss. 'DPS the boss? Surely you mean tank him' you might ask....
At leat if you have specced conq you are basically a DPS/control class, when on the mobs your job is to round them up and kill them, 'threat' is your way of rounding them up, not your way of making sure they hit you. You want to be evading damage, not blocking it with your shield (blocking being a last resort/method to genereate AP.) You can put out good damage, expect to top damage meters at least semi-regularly, depending on your gear etc. Be sure to have threatening rush and enhanced mark slotted when you're mob DPS! You will, in my experience, struggle to hold agro without it, and if you're not holding agro someone squishier probably has it and while you're not a 'tank' in the sense that you are in some games, you still prefer it be your face than the clerics.
When on the boss you still do good damage, good enough to fill the TR's boots and be the 'boss killer', but there's a little room left in those metaphorical boots, don't expect to top meters on the boss. While you're not ideal for this job, you're about as good as a GWF at it, and CW is only good at this on certain fights, so you might find yourself doing it.
As to whether we're the 'worst class' as many people seem to claim I'm not entirely sure that I disagree, but I certainly am not concerned by it. I feel powerful, I do lots of damage and provide good utility to the group, replace the word guardian with control and things might make more sense. It doesn't need to be the same as tanking in other games for it to be good, useful or fun and it is definitely all of those things.
I've got a guardian at level 40. And my impression so far is that the guardian has some serious gameplay system problems. I honestly don't have much trouble drawing aggro from individual enemies or small groups. Improved Mark, Enforced Threat, and Threatening Rush will get me all the attention I want. The issue then becomes: What do I do with it.
The guardian's shield mechanic seems like such an amazing thing until you realize that bosses, even mid-level guys like Battle Wights, can knock half your guard meter off with one hit. You're FAR better off avoiding their large hits, but that's where the gameplay mechanics get in your way. Your shield is "sluggish". It takes a second to come up, and it takes a second to go away, and while it's up you move like molasses which makes it harder to get out of the attack's reach. Several enemies, especially as I go up in levels, can complete their attack faster than I can make a decision to block or not and then either bring the shield up or let it go and move out of the way. And in high level dungeons, when there's half a dozen mid level guys all after you at once? Forget it. If you put your shield up it will be battered aside instantly. Also nothing seems to improve the amount of damage your shield can absorb, which is strange and probably isn't helping its general feeling of semi-futility.
Anyway. Yeah. I can get things attention, but don't feel like I survive really nasty enemies any better than other classes because my shield is so awkward and limited to use and I lack any way to dodge. The things that REALLY help me stay alive are the ones that knock enemies prone so they stop hitting me, or stun them, provided you're fighting just one thing that's worth interrupting (and can be interrupted). The shield seems to be basically just for bulldozing through minor monsters that can't break it while you stab everything in front of you or for occasionally avoiding stuns/disables/spell AOEs if you're not near an edge.
meh
I'm only level 16 on my GF but I totally agree with this. When running The Cloak Tower, I feel like it's just chaos all the way through. So then I feel like I'm playing a worthless class. If I can't hold aggro, then I'm just a weak DPS class... so why not just play my Rogue or something instead. The only thing that holds me to my GF is the hopes that they will fix it, as I prefer playing Tank classes in these games.
you know why? BECAUSE IT'S D&D!!!
did you ever playerd D&D?
the neverwinter system is working perfectly, no problem at dungeons...
Jasbinschek D' Forc - GWF lvl 60 8.5K GS (for now)
Who said it was WoW? If there are issues with a certain class, where as the class feels pointless, that's a problem... D&D or any other game. Judging from the length of this thread, I'd think you might have noticed many people seem to agree.
what defines 100% of guard precisely ? whats the equation ? AC * lvl / dmg blablabla? tell me i'm curious. because as it is now our shield is worthless imho.
yeah at least they try to balance classes
I'm at level 26 now, working on hitting 30 after the maintenance is over.
from what I can tell, the philosophy on Tanking in this game is different from most other MMOs. Please note that I am not a T2 farming expert god or anything, I'm just a mid-level player atm. I am speaking from my limited experience playing the Guardian Fighter thus far.
in most MMOs, the Tank is responsible for holding aggro on everything in the encounter. that is their primary focus, get everything in the room beating on them, so that nobody else has to worry about getting hit, or avoiding damage themselves. if everyone is hitting the tank, all you have to worry about is your dps rotation or spamming your heals on the tank to keep him standing.
in Neverwinter, the philosophy seems to be slightly different. Here, the primary objective of the Defender is to engage the biggest, baddest *** in the room, and keep him focused on you while the rest of the party clears the smaller enemies, and then moves on to help you with the Big Guy. You assist with what AOE damage and threat skills that you can, but maintaining aggro on everything else is secondary to keeping the Big Guy off of the rest of your party. IF you can get and maintain agro on the rest of the room, then that is great, but not if it allows the Big Guy to roam free. It falls to the other party members to be attentive enough to be mobile and avoid damage. in short, the Strikers, Controllers, and Leaders, need to pay a little more attention. The Controllers can make things more manageable for the Strikers with their Crowd Control skills and damage. The Leaders keep everyone buffed and healed.
overall, this philosophy is sound and works, provided everything is operating the way it is supposed to. the problem here, is that everything is NOT operating the way it is supposed to. Cleric Aggro and Guardian Threat is wonky, to put it nicely.
I can gree that tanking isn't the only thing for a GF but sayign it's not at all is wrong. No i'm not anywhere near max lv but if we are not meant to tank why do we have block on our shift? Only reason is to block things that hit us and if we are not suppose to tank then that's pointless and so is all the extra threat passives and abilities.
I bet you meant it differently but you did say we shouldn't tank but be guardians while I'd say we shoudl be both. Adapt to the situation and keep as much on you as possible sicne you can take the most damage and help your team mates.