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So what is going to be done about guardian fighters?
wildfire5
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
From what I can tell, Conqueror spec GFs might have an advantage, depending on what the rework to power does, but most other GFs are gonna be left in the dust if the KC set is nerfed.
Everyone is complaining about GFs. It's universally agreed to be the most difficult class to play and not very essential for most dungeons. They still have their place, and they can still be effective and fun, but most GFs are starting to feel alienated by the lack of support. The buff from a few weeks ago was a step in the right direction, but most people agree it's not enough.
So can we get any word on whether or not more will be done to support the class? I love my GF, but it's starting to get awfully lonely wherever I go. And my lv 16 wizard keeps beckoning...
EDIT 4-1-14: I was hoping to hear from a developer with this thread. The discussion is still valid and I think there are some good ideas here, but more than anything else I at least want confirmation that something is in the works.
EDIT 5-09-2014: Developer response! YAY!
Everyone is complaining about GFs. It's universally agreed to be the most difficult class to play and not very essential for most dungeons. They still have their place, and they can still be effective and fun, but most GFs are starting to feel alienated by the lack of support. The buff from a few weeks ago was a step in the right direction, but most people agree it's not enough.
So can we get any word on whether or not more will be done to support the class? I love my GF, but it's starting to get awfully lonely wherever I go. And my lv 16 wizard keeps beckoning...
EDIT 4-1-14: I was hoping to hear from a developer with this thread. The discussion is still valid and I think there are some good ideas here, but more than anything else I at least want confirmation that something is in the works.
EDIT 5-09-2014: Developer response! YAY!
Post edited by wildfire5 on
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Yeah pretty much, there's almost zero reason to roll a GF. Even the only good PVE set for GF's Knight Captain's is going the way of Stalwart so yeah, they're pretty much just for knocking people off points in PVP and then dying moments later.
Well there isn't "no" reason. If you truthfully enjoy the game play and don't mind being gimped, than go for it! Other players will think lesser of you though.
Everything and I mean everything about it is subpar compared to thier Iron Vanguard paragon. the only thing worth while is Steel defense, and from what I hear thats not even working right.
Everything Swordmaster does, Iron vanguard can do better. Everything just goes down in this paragon path. And this should have been looked at waaay earlier.
And you know what? I realized something important. After playing with a GF a long time I discovered there are ways to make them effective, that sometimes they are powerful and can compete, and that there are times where a GF is the life saver in the group. But none of that actually matters. I realized that the developers have to account for average people who just want to have fun and don't want to invest all the time, effort, and skill necessary to play the Guardian Fighter. Not everyone is willing to wear multiple armor sets, restat multiple times, or have to carefully research what to do in each battle.
The fact is, Guardian Fighters are an inaccessible class that the rest of the community looks down on. They CAN be effective. You CAN learn how to play them. They CAN be fun. They CAN be powerful. But CAN and WILL are two very different things. And I think it's unfair that people who wanna play as Guardian Fighters have to work twice as hard and do twice as much research to achieve the same results as people who are just winging it with other classes.
It'd be different, all that would be understandable, if they were essential to the game. But they're not.
Weapon Damage
Without fixing this GF DPS will always be surpar in no matter PVE or PVP.
Basically GF imo is a failure, who ever design this class should just go to hell. This class would remain in a bad state unless it gets some complete revamp. A change of play style need to be achieved or some really hard core buff in numbers or this class would always be kind of mediocre and inferior to GWF.
Convert GF into Warden. All former GFs get a mandatory respec, including a re-roll of initial Ability Points.
Rebalance Iron Vanguard powers and feats specifically for GWF. Warden gets two unique new Paragons. Maybe Bloodwrath Guardian (though the transformation ability might be tricky) and Horned Champion or First Hunter.
Or some patch notes.
This is not a new idea. In Everquest by the 2nd expansion the devs realized their "epic" content needed this sort of mob or nothing else they did for class balance mattered. Every expansion after that the unkitable, unCCable, elite melee mob got steadily less elite and more common, and the mob types maintained themselves as an important "HAMSTER" for developers to use to tune class balance. If you are wondering because you played EQ where I am talking about: Temple of Veeshan was the first place you saw the epic mount run speed drake that had to be tanked, and then in Ssra you saw them again as elite snakes, and then after that it became much more common in group content.
I think bosses should have a bit of a reverse armor pen mechanic. Typically armor pen in most games takes you down more if you have more armor, but that punishes having armor, and that is not what we want to do for the GF. I can think of an equation that would take down target defense more when you have less armor, so that people with 20% mitigation basically have 0 mitigation while people with 50% mitigation continue to have the full mitigation. Like for example a boss could subtract from its targets defense 3000*exp(-x/5000) for its single target melee. Call this epic boss mob melee penetration. If you graph that you see that it subtracts a ton from low defense targets and almost nothing from high defense targets. Numbers could be tuned or it could be restated in terms of mitigation. For example, subtract 30*exp(-x/50) from mitigation prior to calculating boss melee damage.
The point of this is that currently there is a choice between high dps, low mitigation, with life steal and a low dps, high mitigation, no life steal character builds for tanking, and that choice is pushed far to strongly in favor of just life steal up while you tank. Things such as non-linear defense reduction can disrupt that so mitigating looks a lot better. Basically a tissue tank would have no armor, a medium tank would have tissue armor, but a strong tank with high mitigation would continue to have high mitigation. This would make boss mobs more likely to be tanked by... tanks...
I also think maybe GF should get a bit more AC on shields (like 16AC instead of 8AC). This is equivalent to saying GF should get more mitigation bonus, but instead of saying that it makes sense to say the shield. The reason it makes sense is because shield stats don't add up in the mmo they have designed. I played a ton of 2nd edition ADD, and I am not sure of the math in 4th edition, but there is no way any rational min/maxer would chose a shield over a two-hand weapon in this game the way things are now. You don't chose the shield in this game instead you chose guard and you suffer the consequence of having to use a 1 hand weapon and shield as a price payed for guard. It would be a little nice if a shield had value enough that it wasn't "paying a price" for guard, but rather a trade off that you accepted as equal but different than a two-hand weapon. We don't get the choice as a GF, but for a second maybe we should pretend we do. GFs need a mitigation bonus: toss it on shield AC problem solved.
tl;dr
The epic dungeon content is the problem.
Dungeon content in general needs more stuff like that, not just epics. However, I do still feel that GF needs a bit of a rework. The tab mechanic could be improved upon somehow or changed to something else. The damage output could be improved a little, or the amount of guard could be improved a bit. Personally I'd leave the guard as-is and increase the damage a bit. I wouldn't add hard taunts since that steps on the toes of ever adding Paladins or Wardens (yes, I'm fixated on Wardens being added).
- to small DPS (for example better weapon set for Conqueror (more weapon dmg and power bonus instead defense) - why don't get eq dependent from ability or feats? This don't be nothing new (better dps set for conqueror, set with more defense for protector, etc.)
- wrong design the epic dungeon - more mobs with 100% resist on CC including Oppressive Force is needed
GF need more flexibility, in this game are player how want doing dps with this class like in Neverwinter Nights and we have some player how want to by typical tank like in other MMO games.
We have three difrent paragon way but we don't have appropriate eq for this way's.
I waiting on true warrior with dps and shield on my GF
1)GF does not ,as many non GF believe, an advantage in defence mitigation compared to other classes.In fact some GWf armors have higher defence stats than the epic Gf armors.Even if shield's Ac is go as high as 16 this would offer basically 3% increase in DR.48% DR compared to 51% makes no real difference in real gameplay.
2)GF does not,as many non Gf believe, has an advantage over other classes in Hp.All classes are the same to that.
3).GF armors have ridicoulous low power stats.Even timeless hero armor has power stats compared easily with some Tr and GWf armors.have in mind that in this game aggro=dmg and you have a big problem for GF.
4) GF offensive capabilities are in continous nerf up to mod 2 since early beta.Result=average GFs cannot kill a single erinya.Gf kill capability is slightly better than DC.That says it all.That makes any party that goes to add infested dungs(100% of the game) to treat Gf as a liability.And rigtfully show.
Conclusion.Average Gf has about less hp that sentinels GWfs,20% of a GWf damage,slightly better aggro(but worst than HR/CW/DC so problem remains) and equal or worst def/DR.So why a party to take this class with them???
Add to that that the second "offensive"(
And a final thing to say.13% of new chars were Gf during mod 2 and onwards.how many GFs you see endgame?3?5?10?In wholes server?people made a Gf come here in forums when they are around lv40-55 , say Gf is great(i am sure that is the answers i ll get here) then try end up content and roll a GWF...
I see green /blue equipped Gfs in PE often but just for one time.They then dissapear into the recycle bin.Good geared stubborn Gfs are extremely few.Cause that is a class that offers nothing in OPness and the only people to play are the people that want to RP a GF.
Gf needs major dmg boost.Dmg boost=aggro boost.Dmg boost=survivability boost(cause you kill the adds before they kill you).Gf problems solved.
edit:
lol forum censor 1,5 hand sword
^^
+1
In this game a leather armored Tr has about 70% Dr of a heavily armoured plate Gf and his miniscule daggers do 3X the dmg of the GFs long sword... sigh...
Well GWF and HR are getting (very) significant nerfs on the Test Shard so GF DPS might not be significantly less than them. If not, then GF in Conqueror spec should be almost as high since 'tanking' ability adds hardly anything to a class' usefulness in current Dungeons.
true but only in test shard.based on the 27 pages thread in preview upon their changes i see the real ,very real possibility ,that their nerf to be significant less when mod 3 goes live.
i mean they reacted by filling 27 pages in what?In their bugged deep gash feat that gave them 40-50% of their dmg.Based on their numbers i say the devs will not nerf them in a significant matter.And also destroyer gets a 30-35% dmg boost.So thier nerf is not universal nor certain.
Hrs i think their nerf will proceed.But the class antagonist of Gf is GWF .it shouldn't be but in todays NW it is.GWF Sent is the real tank of NW.
Another observation i made:1,5 month ago the shirts for Gfs were sold at 2600 ad with zen/ad ratio to 375.Now with 414 zen/ad ratio and Gf shirs/pants price to 1300-1400 ad, that shows to me,
aproximatelly and roughly that while total numbe of NW players stays roughly the same,number of already small active GFs has lowered by half....
And as said all Gfs agree we need a major dmg boost.yet in preview LS was reduced by a hefty 10% although the devs said it was a mistake and trying to fix that.Also Anvil of Doom was reduced...let's hope to get some faster animations and dmg boosts in mod 3 ...
Well GWF is actually getting a Tanking Nerf and a lot damage buffs so I wouldn't say anything about the DPS. HRs as well are getting a bunch of more buffs a long with a couple of nerfs to some over used skills.
I wouldn't say these classes are getting nerfed I would say they are being adjusted to a spot the Devs want them at. They will still be quite strong actually just in different ways now.
The GF however does need some love to put him in line with all of the other classes.
This is why I tell people the skill level required to be a "decent" GF (no good, not the best, not a master), is FAR greater than other classes.
It is basically a bit like the HR system, give the GF two stances/modes
Make the TAB a switch between a blocking and a not blocking stance. So no more blocking with shift.
The blocking stance gives you a AC bonus of something like 12-15. Guard meter can become a stamina meter just like for the other classes. The stamina can then serve for the SHIFT feature: Grounded: CC immunit,y until stamina runs out.
During blocking stance we are pretty static as we currently are as well. but we get a different set of powers. These powers are mostly defensive and threat building in nature.
When not in blocking stance, we build less threat, but we keep our current powers and a speeed boost, cos we need it.
This way curent powers dont need buffing that much as we'd get some extra powers due to extra stance.
I am aware of the fact that this is way different from current GF and therefore would need some time to balance, but I think GF needs differentiating from GWF, cos now we are just the weaker, squichier, slower cousin of the GWF with a shield.
This is actually a pretty good idea and we know the game engine can handle this too
Only thing I would suggest to avoid abuse is that there is a cool-down on this change and you can't change while in combat. I know this is more restrictive than the HR, but otherwise the GF would have the best of both world, defensively and offensively.
I disagree with making switch only out of battle. The defensive stance would not have very much dps in it at all and the current powers are not even close to the best of the "offensive world" and being the best in the defensive world is sort of what we are trying to achieve. A cooldown or making it a quite slow switch I suppose makes sense.
Trying to achieve... Sucks to read that. GF's should not be this dang complicated. We shouldn't have to earn the right to be a TANK through a long hard (that's what she said lol...) campaign on the forums! We should have automatically been the hardest thing to kill since day one!
Ant-monster I know you trying to achieve a more possitive look on the GF, which is needed I agree, but even the defs agree GF under powered . You might not like the current situation, but change is needed.
Making the switch out-of-combat only and and a long cooldown would mean that the 'offensive' spec could do a lot of damage, perhaps similar to that of a GWF without having serious balance issues. If there was a fast cooldown or no in-combat lockout, then that would severely limit the possible bonus that the aggressive stance could get without it becoming unbalanced.
This way, the GF can have both an effective DPS stance AND a tanking stance rather than having a weakened version of each due to balance issues.
As now,we fill the same role theoretically with GWF Sent.Especially the conq tree of GF.
GWF Sent is an offensive fighter class tuned to defence.GF Conq is a defensive fighter class tuned to offense.Both they meet in one point exactly.
As i see more natural will be the GF conquerors and GWF Sents to have exactly the same offensive capability.
no need for switch etc.
As said before all the other problems of Gf will indirectly will be solved by the dmg increase.No tab /Mark reworking etc.
More damage morre aggro.Mobs stick to GF.More dmg better survivability cause a Gf wil be capable of at least kill some and not running around in circles like Benny Hill.cause if aggro is increased while dmg remains the same GF has 2 options.Run or die..
i think as a sommunity we must stick to more damage demand,especially for Conqs.(they are a purely dps branch of GF by definition)